I Always Knew This Was Coming
by MiloOfTheKey
Summary: Part Two to "I Never Realized How Small Konoha Was' : Six years have passed, and Team 7 - Noa's Team 7 - has finally reunited. But now that Noa has the means, she's faced with the task of dealing with the war she knows is looming on the horizon.
1. PROLOUGE

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **THE ANBU CROW**

"Crow!" Cat yells out, pulling my attention from the target's head rolling down the road's incline. "Hound is close to exhaustion. Take him back to randevious - leave a summon behind to track you."

I nod once, deftly, before I'm flying through the hand signs and a single elegant crow appears in a puff of smoke. The moment young Kurosora has kicked off the ground and taken flight my old sensei is on my back and I'm headed full tilt to a warded safe house.

'Naruto, Noa,' I find myself thinking. 'Where are you now?'

* * *

 **THE ON-DUTY MEDIC**

"Kaa-chan!" The little girl yells, her voice breaking in the busy hospital room. Even from across the room, I can see the nasty laceration across her scalp and the way she sways. Dammit, she must of been in the collapsed building too - why hasn't she been treated?

"Hey, hey," I call out to her, kneeling to take her hands, pulling her eyes from the crowd to mine. "What's your name, sweetie? Do you know what your kaa-san's name is?"

"H-Harumi," She hiccups, and I gently raise a hand to seal up her forehead wound. "Kaa-chan's name is Natsumi. Nensho Natsumi."

I smile warmly, standing as I hold one of her hands in my far larger one. "Well then, Beautiful Spring. I've met your Kaa-chan - she sells ribbons in the market, right? Let's go find her."

The thought of seeing her mother and finding someone who had met her - if only in passing - is enough to get her smiling: her tough smile bright and strong framed by her short black hair - achingly reminding me of those I was missing too.

' Sasuke, Ruto, ' I find myself thinking. ' Where are you now? '

 **THE FUUINJUTSU APPRENTICE**

My back is pressed firmly to the rough stones native to Earth country, Renyard healing immediately the scrapes across my bare hands.

'Dammit Ero-Sennin,' I think bitterly. 'Research doesn't give you an excuse to not give me backup in IWA territory!'

I can feel the flare of a jutsu off to my right, and immediately I've swiped a bloodied digit across my forearm - a brush already inked appearing in my free hand. Before the chakra dust even settles I've inked six rocks with strong explosive seals, sending back my brush in order to scoop them up and lob them out at the enemy-nin.

The explosion rocks the earth, and the combination of the spray of blood and the tremors chases two hawks out of the shrubbery on the cliff -

One pitch black and the other a startling albino, it's feathers glowing seemingly with a halo in the evening light.

'Noa, Sasuke,' I find myself thinking. 'Where are you now?'

* * *

 **THE TAICHO**

My squad lands around me exactly five minutes before I had ordered to meet. They stand at semi-attention; the lot of them were experienced outside of ANBU, but were rookies inside. I was significantly higher on the totem pole than them considering my four year stint going full dark and they respected that. I had snooped around and found that my rookies - Rabbit, a wiry Hyuuga a few years my senior; Bear, a surprisingly level headed Inuzuka; and the very young Mouse - were all to some degree scared of me, considering my sheer kill count.

But that wasn't today.

"Mission: guarding within village," I drill out, my sharp monotone, bringing my squad to full attention. "Rabbit, this is a trial - see how long you can hold your Bakugan. Bear and Mouse, you support Rabbit and be vigilant, but because I wouldn't want you all to grow bored -" I draw out the word, referencing earlier complaints that I had refused - violently - to tolerate, "- you get to do that while being completely unobserved by our ward. Be warned: she's a sensor."

My rookies all wince, and I feel a job well done. Noa'd sniff them out in a second.

* * *

 **THE FIELD MEDIC**

"Noa-hasu! Will you do me the honor of sparring you for your hand?" Lee hollers at me as I complete a complicated kata across the Naka river's surface, "If I fail again I shall hop through Training Ground 44 whilst covered in raw meat!"

I sigh with a reluctant smile pulling at the edge of my lips, knowing that Lee wasn't being serious. Somewhere along the line it became a game for the Konoha 12 - well, the Konoha 10 without my boys. They tried to convince as many people as they could that I was dating _ or being wooed by _.

(I suspected that Shikamaru started it out, and I don't know how many of them actually know the truth. However it happened, I was asked by Aburame Shiki last week when I was marrying into her clan - it was working and it was crazy -!)

"No, Lee!" I call out, letting my humor show. "You're going to lose, and when you do you-"

I stumble on my words, falter for just a second before I'm taunting Lee on autopilot.

Sasuke is here!

But he's still dark and there are nearly two more years to go.

My spirit sinks.

(Lee gets me to spar anyway, but my focus is on the spark of familiar indigo chakra just out of my reach...)

* * *

 **THE TRUE TOAD SAGE**

"You said that you had a seal for me, Naruto?" The redheaded Kazekage asked dryly, concealing his excitement for this new addition well.

But I knew him too well.

"Sure do!" I chuckle, my hands just itching to ink my new design onto my friend. "Shukaku may be friendly now, but this will make it much more comfortable for the both of you!"

He nods once, decisively, before checking the clock on the wall. "Unfortunately, I have a meeting with the council in regards to our current problem of the Akatsuki and this will have to commence later."

I nod, understanding the issue. I send him a quick wave, already turning to leave his office when his voice stops me. "Naruto, I do have something that might keep you busy while you're here."

The scroll carelessly thrown by his sand at my head nearly hits me - that is, would've nearly hit me if not for my jounin level reflexes. I glance at it curiously, but before I could even ask my fellow Jinchuriki clarifies the identity of the scroll.

"Noa came to visit last year, shortly after you did. She left this for you if you ever came back, a 'little bit of home' as she put it. Temari believes it's letters and stories from home."

I gulp around the lump in my throat and reflexively count the months - only fifteen more left.

"Thanks, Gaara." I get out, voice still rough, "I'll see you tonight."

* * *

Across the Nations, a stubborn sage, a deadly crow, and a foreign healer all - for an instant - pause .

Stop .

Because they all feel it, even if they cannot explain and perhaps they will forget. But it is the moment that the path of fate destined for the next coming of the Legendary Three shifts:

For no longer are they the Neo Sannin - the fool with power, the traitor with a deadly path, and a little girl fighting to grow up.

They are something newer, stronger.

And everything changes.


	2. FALLING IN

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

I yawn lazily, pulling Shikamaru up with me as I stand from beneath the Nara Clan's oldest oak tree. He grumbles in protest, but I studiously ignore it as I dismiss the blanket we had been laying on and the chess set we'd been using.

"C'mon Stag. If you had wanted to do this at your place then you should've never suggested we keep this all a secret," I point out, grinning slightly at my boyfriends typical response.

"Not that it would've mattered much then anyway, Troublesome Woman," He bemoans predictably. "It took me three years for you to even let me kiss you."

Shooting a grin over my shoulder, I begin to walk towards the woods - already mapping my route home in my head. "Oh, but Stag, how else was I to keep my purity safe from your highly motivated hormones?" I tease lightly.

In just a few of his overly long (Goddam TALL people!) strides Shika comes up right beside me, his hand resting with an air of casualness on the small of my back. "Ah yes," He gives an air of remembrance. "Your … purity."

He nips playfully at my neck, and I laugh at the irony. Nara men may be … lazy, but they do know how to get something done when they need to.

Or when they want to.

I blush gently and pulled away reluctantly from his touch, "Teacher's expecting me. I need to go."

With a muttered 'troublesome' and a chaste kiss, he agrees. I whip out my wings and launch into the air.

* * *

 **UCHIHA SASUKE**

The door to my room in the barrack creaks open as a silent figure ducks inside. I don't even bother to look up - my senses long honed telling me I was in no danger, that I knew the intruder - when I sigh and finish zipping my duffle.

"Hound, I know that you enjoy terrorizing as many of your underlings as possible in any given day, but I share rank with you. Unlike Cat I refuse to call you 'senpai' and treat you as far above me," I drawl, my ANBU Crow persona of dry wit still as firmly in place as my mask.

"Maa Maa Sasuke," Kakashi complians weakly - and I glance up sharply at the sound of my name. Huh. Hadn't heard that for six years. "My cute little jounin doesn't love me anymore - I'm hurt."

Jounin ?

Eyeing the closed door, I pull off my mask and peer at my old jounin-sensei and taicho. "Kakashi," I start, trying out my words carefully as my heart pounds painfully in my chest. "I am not a jounin. I am a chunin and an ANBU squad captain."

"Nope!" The dog summoner chirps out cheerfully, and I dare to hope. "You are Uchiha Sasuke, Konohagakure's elite jounin and Squad 7's genjutsu specialist, didn't you know?"

Before I can even begin to formulate a response, Kakashi has slung my duffle (it's standard to shuffle rooms at random times as to reduce the chance of possible infiltration, this was so Kakashi's doing, the sadistic bastard ) and is already striding towards the door.

"Better get that mask on, Crow," He calls over his shoulder as I hastily comply. "After all, this may be the last time you ever need to wear it."

* * *

 **UZUMAKI NARUTO**

"Oi, brat!" I hear Jiraiya call from behind me, and I suddenly realize I had left him behind. "Konoha isn't going anywhere, enjoy the journey!"

I groan irritatedly, slowing my steps to fall in beside my godfather, "I know that Konoha isn't going anywhere, but we aren't either!" I grumble. "Anyway, you just want me to edit your newest trashy transcript!"

"My work is not trash!" Jiraiya cries out indignantly. "It's art!"

"The only 'art' of yours I want to look over and fix of yours, Ero-Sennin, is your sealing!" I tease, only half joking. "That freeze tag attempt was pitiful! You completely ruined the stabilizing array just by trying to tack on an extra chakra recirculation circuit. If you wanted to deep freeze yourself, I could've just asked Haku!"

"Brat! That was one time!" Jiraiya growls, a finger jabbed in my face. "And don't talk about that brat and their ice! I still have nightmares from visiting Kiri!"

I snort, eyes on the road ahead, "Well their ice is just fine for a perv like you! You should've known better than flirt with them - even if Zabuza wasn't there Haku has nothing against protecting themself. And as for Kiri in general? Your own damn fault for flirting with the new Mizukage ."

"But-but-but-!" Jiraiya sputters, and I laugh once without sympathy before launching myself into the trees.

"C'mon Ero-Sennin! I've waited six years - I don't want to wait any longer!"

* * *

 **SENJU TSUNADE**

Just as I had timed it, Noa vaults through the window, Naruto bursts through the door, and Sasuke slinks in through the ANBU routes all at exactly the same time.

They all freeze, taking each other in, standing in a rough triangle in my office. They're clearly shocked, and I take a moment to really see them as how they changed over the past six years.

After all, the jump from 13 to 19 is quite a large one.

Noa is familiar to me, and the changes that happened were gradual - I saw them all happen. She wears thick, sturdy black boots and chainmail leggings under her black knee length pants and steel grey slanted belt. Her armored vest is a halter now after a few times too many of punching holes in her tops. It's the same olive green as all those years ago though it hugged her tighter than when she was younger. As she freezes at the sight of her teammates the light catches off her armored elbow and knee guards and the glint of the plates on the back of her gloves. Her hitai-ate, now worn bolted a band around her left bicep like the Nara brat, shines in the light starkly against the red of the fabric. Having long since given up on taming her chaotic hair, she simply wears it in a thick and serviceable braid down her back and a swatch of light green cloth keeping flyaways from her eyes.

Long gone was Sasuke's wide necked Uchiha traditional wear, six years going dark in ANBU instilling comfort in the standard uniform of a tight black tank top with a high neck, black jounin pants, and taped ankles. A katana was strapped to his back with its handles crossed with ANBU's standard tanto, and as he recognized his old team he aborted his movement to draw it. His red ANBU tattoo stands out on his pale and scarred arms. There's a new scar running from his left ear down to his right collarbone, still pink from when an enemy tried to cut his throat, and his messy, shoulder length hair barely covers it. He looked like a veteran of the wars: six years in ANBU is never easy.

The other two had been in village, even if they hadn't come face to face with each other, but that brat ...

What was most eye catching was the cloak - so painfully like Minato's - that he now wore, the mark that he had achieved the title of Sage. It was red to Minato's white, and the flames licking the bottom were black. It was just as eye catching as the massive scroll strapped to his back and the glint of calm determination in his eyes. He still wore orange, of course - not even six years of intensive training can beat that out of him - but it was confined only to his jacket in a dark, jewel toned color. Mesh armor came down to his wrists and his ankles were taped over his black jounin pants. He grew up.

They all did.

They were all taller - although Sasuke still held the lead and Noa was the furthest behind. They were all powerful - albeit in different fields. They were all well on the way to passing their predecessors - if they hadn't already - and…

They were all back.


	3. TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **UNNAMED**

"Report," Danzo-sama orders, and I comply immediately.

"ROOT Agent 26," I state for clarification, as we are all the same. "Reporting on long term observation of one Tsubasa Noa, current jounin of Konohagakure no Sato. Tsubasa Noa has been reunited with Jinchuriki Uzumaki Naruto and ANBU-taicho Uchiha Sasuke. She was first spotted together with them, Hatake Kakashi, Jiraiya of the Sannin, and Godaime Senju Tsunade two days ago while traveling to training ground 7. Once there Tsubasa, Uzumaki, and Uchiha proceed to group spar against Hatake in an attempt to retrieve a bell from him. Said spar seems to have also served as a replacement for the jounin exam, as Uzumaki and Uchiha now are registered as official jounin of Konoha."

Danzo-sama takes a moment to consider this, and I am rock solid and still as I wait for his gesture to proceed. When it comes I continue on without delay, "Uchiha demonstrated abilities quite similar to Hatake in stealth, speed, endurance, genjutsu, and ninjutsu. His genjutsu with and without the Sharingan seem to have passes Hatake in skill, based off outward reactions, and his proficiency with the Sharingan has reached a level to at least match Hatake. He has three tomoe."

After a brief - very brief, ROOT is always prompt and obedient - moment to gather my thoughts, I continue on succinctly: "Uzumaki has proven proficient in both the creation and utilization of seals; a method similar to how the Yondaime was rumored to transfer seals by touch was demonstrated by him with the use of a paralysis seal at the end of the spar that Hatake was unable to release himself from. I did not observe any use of the Sage arts. Uzumaki's ninjutsu, taijutsu, and fuuinjutsu seems to be on par with if not past the level of the first Toad Sage Jiraiya."

My report finished, I await further orders only to be surprised when instead Danzo-sama begin to speak aloud, though not at me.

"She's shown proficiency in taijutsu with that blasted Green Beast, and is well on the way to surpass Tsunade. She's … 19. Her kekkei genkai is invaluable … but her position as clan head makes the Clan Restoration Act far more difficult to push on her … She has objected to its use in the past as well … and as the years have passed she's both gained friends and allies and blocked me at every turn. She can't be allowed to just run free."

"26," Danzo-sama states, finally addressing me. "You have been a main source of information in this case. She still has yet to sense your drawings?"

"Hai, Danzo-sama," I affirm. "I have conjectured that she likens them to the chakra levels of a small animal."

"Good," Danzo-sama muses yet again, and yet again he is no longer addressing me but the air. "Those rumors are notoriously hard to prove true. It seems to be a joke among most of the community to make that girl some prize that many men - even women - seem to be going after and fighting over. That is not good. If she gets mixed up with some woman or with some genetically incompatible then her bloodline may very well be lost …"

Silence, and as ever I am as still as a statue with a spine of steel.

"Keep an eye on her relationships. See if you can pin down which of her teammates or friends she is involved with in such a way. Report immediately if you find that she is growing closer to anyone in particular."

"Hai, Danzo-sama."

He studied me for a moment, and stands from his rather regal chair. "Agent, what is a name you have used in the past?"

I freeze for less than a millisecond before I answer, as hesitantly as any ROOT agent can, "I have been called Sai, Danzo-sama."

"Sai," He echoes, and I stuff deep down the part of me that cringes at the way he says the name that Shin-nii gave to me. "Sai, you are now to begin to interact with Tsubasa on a semi-regular basis. Begin to establish a relationship. We may need a more direct source - though continue your other duties all the same."

"Hai, Danzo-sama." I feel a thread of apprehension quickly squashed. "I will do my best."

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

I don't know why the timeline has changed as much as it has.

Well, okay. That's a lie. I totally know why the timeline has changed so much. I may or may not have booted Sakura off her kinda-rightful place on the team to become the Neo-Sannin. I also drop kicked Sasuke off his path of revenge, gave Ruto a significantly nicer childhood, and made friends with all of the old Konoha 12.

And that was all just early on - I also inadvertently saved the lives of both Haku and Zabuza in wave. And deterred the interest of Orochimaru, forcing him to split it between me and Sasuke while also ensuring that my boys were far smarter and more trained this time around. I saved the Sandiame's life and kept Sasuke from defecting while still ensuring that Tsunade became Hokage, (which was pretty big).

I strengthened Ruto's relationship between him and Jiraiya - while also telling him off. (I told a lot of people off.) I deterred Danzo's plans and managed to instate myself and my team as Clan Heads, solidifying our influence. Somehow the 'time-skip' went from two and a half years to 6.

(And I totally stole Temari's future husband. Sorry, not sorry. I'd gladly be essentially a homewrecker for my Shika.)

So yeah, I made a bunch of changes.

But why has Akatsuki not attacked yet? Because they knew that Ruto wasn't here? They attacked Konoha targeting him, right? And he just happened to not be here - instead off training to be a Sage. Would that deter them so much?

No Ruto means no captured Kurama which means no imminent threat of war... Somehow they never went after Gaara, but many things could be the reason for that. Zabuza, Haku, the Sandaime, Gekko Hayate, and a lot of other people are alive when they weren't 'supposed to' - who knows how many people died because of them? Or continued to live?

(Butterfly effect: didn't really believe in it till I realized I was living it.)

Is it possible to avoid the war completely? How many of the Akatsuki are still on board, and how many dropped out like Orochimaru? Does Nagato still follow his same path? How many Jinchuuriki have been killed and their bijuu captured? Will I ever know?

Could I have done more?

* * *

Ruto laughs so hard he - fancy fancy Sage he is - falls off of his Ichiraku's stool.

" Shadow-boy set everyone up to do what ? " He demands breathlessly. " You mean he seriously has half the village debating which other member of the Leaf 12 you're dating?"

Sasuke 'hns' smugly from my other side, and I shoot him a toothy grin. " It spread even into the Corps ," The smug ex-taicho adds. " Those who didn't know who I was behind the mask occasionally would speculate around and sometimes even with me. It was rather disturbing how often my name come up. "

I snort again, and have to push back the mental image of how Ino or canon-Sakura would react in this situation in my place, " Ew. I don't date my brothers, I'll leave that up to the Kurama Clan. They're messed up enough for that. "

" But who do the most people think you're with? Is there a majority? " Ruto pushes on, and I shovel ramen into my face to get out of answering.

" Not really, " Sasuke saves me. " But in terms of who comes up a lot - besides you and me? \- Shino, Kakashi, Neji, Lee, and Ino top the list."

Ruto chokes on his ramen, and I have to pound him on the back a few times to clear his airways. " Whaaaaaat ?" He draws as his eyes go as wide as his ramen bowls. " I can mostly get us, Neji, Ino, and Lee - but Kakashi and Shino ?"

"Kakashi I have no explanation for ." I clarify, indignant. " He's another one of my brothers - and he's like 14 years my senior " - (If you don't count my memories of another life, cuz then I'm both nearly two years his senior and 16 years Shika's senior. We don't think about that.) - " And apparently anyone interacting with an Aburame any more than three times in a week 'must be fucking them. ' This is what I get for being a good friend! Honestly! "

(After Ruto's laughter goes on for more than five minutes; I hit him with a good sized kick to his shins and he shuts up.)

* * *

 **UZUMAKI NARUTO**

The moment that the council meeting is in session I know that something is up.

Out of the folder I brought - for notes and bored doodling alike - I bring out a single thick piece of parchment while out of the corner of my eyes I see Noa and Sasuke mimic my actions.

After too long of having letters that told of important news weeks after they happened, I decided to try and develop a system of more instantaneous communication. It had a short range, but after a year I managed to develop three sheets of parchment that would mimic each other.

Write on one, it appears on the other.

(Jiraiya bet I couldn't do it. He owed me ramen for a month after I pulled it off.)

' Something's up ' I scrawl in english across the page.

' Your fault, you two, ' Noa's neat loops write back. ' Silent for six years with only the occasional attempted dick move? Yeah, it's totally you. Troublesome, you owe me dango for this.'

' That's just rude, ' Sasuke fires back in his meticulous hand. 'And cut it out with the 'troublesome.' You may be practically the next Lady of the Shadow Clan, but you're not a Nara yet.'

' I resent that. ' Noa jokes back, but whatever else she was going to say was cut off by Baa-chan bringing us all to order.

* * *

'Called it,' Noa writes in bold, annoyed letters when Danzo calls attention 'one last matter.'

"It is concerning," The one eyed jerk starts, and I have to suppress a shiver at his dry, monotonous tone. "That rumors have been cropping up in the small village Moeru, in the northern part of the Land of Fire - near the border to Grass Country - that surviving Tsubasa clansmen have been attempting to establish headship."

(Stunned as I - and the room as a whole - may be, I can't help but scribble a quick ' Or not ' on the paper before turning back to the discussion.)

Noa takes a second to gather herself, and then turns to face the elder with a positively neutral expression. "Shimura," She addresses, as always forgetting - on purpose or not - any honorifics. "This is a matter that I should've been alerted of immediately and privately, not one to be brought before the whole of the council for your own personal gain."

(The old bags that are the Advisors flinch minutely, showing to the room - who were paying attention - that they also knew of the matter and Danzo's plan. Jiji doesn't look happy though, and I can tell that six years has put strain on that relationship possibly past repair.)

"I apologize, Tsubasa," Danzo apologizes, not sounding apologetic at all and leaving off the honorifics in kind. "But I was merely concerned that this conflict of interest may sway your position in this meeting - and maybe even your loyalty to this village."

'That was weak. He didn't expect you to fight back,' Is Sasuke's thoughts on that.

I scoff outright, and the room turns their attention to me. I shrug, and gesture at the room. "This is pathetic," I declare, scoffing again. "Ero-sennin was in and out for two decades before taking a twelve year stint away. Baa-chan - y'know, our Hokage - was gone for twenty years before coming back to take the hat."

I scan the room, seeing how much affect my words have. "If you question the loyalty of one of our top medics and elite jounin over a conflict of interest she didn't even know existed, then why do you not question theirs? Mine? I've been out of village for how long? Six years? Yet my position is not questioned."

"She is a bastard child," Danzo tries again, with far more bite than he deserved to give. "The Tsubasa may contest her position."

"Or they may not," Ino's dad cuts in. "This may be an incentive for powerful shinobi to join our village, why deny them the chance?"

"And as Tsubasa-sama said," Choji's dad adds. "This is not a matter to discuss here, at least for the moment. Tsubasa-sama is to deal with this to the best of her ability first before it becomes our concern."

"Good point, Chouza," Baa-chan grits out. "Discussion closed. Noa, deal with it."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."


	4. THE INEVITABLE

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

"Little feather," Tsunade calls out to me as the meeting ends. "A word."

"Hai, Hokage-sama," I affirm, turning to my squadmates. " I'll meet you guys at the compound to talk about all this shit. Teach comes first, though. "

* * *

"Danzo can't be trusted."

"..."

I stare down my mentor for the last six years, and the only strong female role model that I had in this life. "Tsunade-shishou," I start, my words deliberate. "I have never - from before I even met the slimy git - trusted Danzo nearly as far as I could throw him. And I am very interested in finding out how far that is."

Tsunade sits back, her eyes narrowing as she gazed at me behind her desk. "Why?"

I blink, confused. "Why, what?"

"Why -" The Godaime starts, words carefully chosen but deceptively light "- Do you not trust Danzo?"

I slump back onto the couch, toying with the answer in my mind. I had been putting off for (what very well may be) too long finding someone to give the most of my information to. I needed someone who wouldn't lose trust in me despite how much I had been lying.

Was Tsunade it?

No.

No. Because she has been betrayed by those that she has trusted before. I can't do that to her. Not now.  
"Because," I start, tasting the words. "I hold no illusions that although Konoha may be the most peaceful of the Hidden Villages, that in no way means that there are no traitors or deceptors."

Standing, I go to the shelves where I know that my drunk of a teacher hides her booze, and I remove a bottle. When I turn back to face the Last Senju, I can see her too-sharp eyes following my every move.

(Good luck unnerving me like that. I'm practically a Nara already at this point. They're known for that kind of shit.)

"The Sandaime was not a good Hokage," I declare with finality, knowing that Tsunade was fully aware of how I felt about her old sensei. "He let too much go. And when I saw one crack, logically I had to look for others. It didn't take long for me to find … unsavory things."

As I pop the seal on the sake, I count my lucky stars that I was actually able to find physical evidence that wasn't just 'P.S. I'm from another dimension.' Just not as early as I was claiming. I poured us each a rather generous bowl, and down mine in an instant.

"You know about the massacre."

The Legendary Sucker's voice is low. Level. Steady. But I know that one false word, one false start, and it all goes to shit from here.

"As do you," I shoot back, just as calm.

"Noa. This is not a joke."

I furiously stomp down on my emotions - the seal on my back tingling. "Do you think I'm treating it like one?" I ask, voice mild but holding back poison.

There's a tense pause.

"Do you really think you have family down Moeru?" Tsunade asks in a far lighter tone.

"My family is here, Tsunade." I correct, choosing to ignore the subject change. "And I don't know what to think about this claim to have clan members up north."

Another pause, this one far more contemplative.

"Take a team. I'm limiting you to a squad of four - you, Kakashi, and two more of your choice who aren't Sasuke or Naruto. I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket if this all goes to shit."

"Hai, Tsunade-shishou."

* * *

 **UZUMAKI NARUTO**

When Noa enters the house only to immediately collapse onto the nearest coach, I know just how bad it all is.

" So it's most likely a trap, then? " Sasuke comments mildly, humming thoughtfully at Noa's tired shrug. " Your team? "

" Me, the Scarecrow, and two more who aren't either of you, " Noa grosses out, and I have to hold back a groan. " Teach doesn't want 'all of her eggs in one basket.' "

" Which is bull, " I grumble. " Team 7 works better as a team . Splitting us up won't help anyone. Six years was bad enough. "

" Which is why \- " Noa starts with a tone of finality, sitting up. " When you become the Fire Shadow, you sure as hell have your head out of your ass and corrupt officials out of your councils! "

Sasuke just snorts, " As if we'd let him slide that far. "

" Point ," The medic volleys back lazily. " Who should I take with me? "

I sigh, preparing myself for a long discussion. " Well ," I start, pulling out a complex containment seal that was bothering me, " The question is what do you honestly expect to find there? I mean \- "

" - What Useless means is that your response is different based off whether it's a trap or not, " Sasuke cuts over me, smirking at my mock-hurt look. " Trap? Bring a White-Eye or a Dog. "

I chime in seamlessly, following his train of thought, " And if it's not? A Mind Reader or Shadow User. Someone good with words. "

Our honorary sister and teammate seems to think it over, humming slightly and eyes glazing in thought as she leans back onto the couch.

" You'll need someone who can put up with Scarecrow's quirks, " I point out with a laugh. " And if you want to keep up your charade with the whole 'who's dating who' thing then you probably need at least one of your 'dates' with you, especially if the Council may find out you chose the team mostly yourself. "

" She does already have Scarecrow though, " Sasuke counters from where he settled on the couch to sharpen his tanto. " If it's a choice between charade and keeping safe then I'd say safety first. "

" I think that I'll be able to handle the talking, for the most part …" Noa interposes. " But if the Council is going to make a move, it isn't going to be some little skirmish. It's going to be big. I need a balanced team for that. "

Sasuke and I share a look above Noa's prone form, and I can tell we're both thinking the same thing.

' Speculation is one thing, but she actually thinks it'll come to blows?'

But we push past it. Put our faith in Noa as always. Look past the doubt to where the trust is.

"Balanced team means that you need real variety to tackle anything that's thrown at you, " I vocalize instead of pondering on just what my fellow orphan was getting into. " You've got hand-to-hand, medical support, and weaponry. Scarecrow's got his Eye, Illusions, tracking, and Special Ops training. You need a long range and possibly another support. "

" Just make sure it's someone competent, " Is all Sasuke has to add.

Aneki purses her lips, " How do Shino and Shikamaru sound ?"

Sasuke pauses in the middle of a stroke of his whetstone, " Actually … that should work. "

" Long range, a 'date,' and people you know and trust, " I aquiess, nodding along. " You worked with Bug-Boy before? "

Noa just shrugs, pulling herself up from the coach (hopefully to cook, I'm starving !) " Not really, but we have sparred and I'm familiar with his techniques. "

She sauntered over to her shoe-rack, yanking her boots out carlessly. " I'm gonna go find my squad. I'll say goodbye tomorrow, but -" Noa smirks, cocking an eyebrow suggestively. " Don't expect me back tonight. "

I nearly gag at the implied reference to her sex life.

'Didn't need to know that thank you!' My brain sputters out.

* * *

 **'SAI'**

I have my ink animals follow my target at a distance until she finishes what seems to be her official submission of her Squad.

Notable. I was unaware that Shinobi were permitted to have an opinion on whom they worked with.

She stops into a drug store - the address of which I dutifully note, as is expected of me - and I chose to use this opportunity to interact with my target.

(Idly, I realize I have never been inside a drug store.)

A bell chimes, and my instincts are to immediately wipe out any witnesses before I realize that the civilian owner of the shop was not a threat. And Tsubasa was my target, but not of an assassination. Only to talk to.

Talk. Right.

Tsubasa seems to be over near where the owner stores alcohol, picking up a case of beer. Why would she drink, if before a mission?

I approach her.

When my target turns, I notice first confusion and then surprise in her eyes. But then her eyes show something else, and I do not know what that emotion is.

I read that you should greet someone you meet for the first time by introducing yourself.

"Hello. I am Sai."

Something flashes through her eyes - quickly, too quickly - at my name, but it goes quickly. "Hiya," Tsubasa greets back. "Name's Noa. I like your name, I actually use sai as one of my primary weapons."

She … likes my name? That was a compliment, no?

"Why are you drinking before you go on a mission?" I ask.

After all, if you don't know you should clarify, correct? Maybe she would correct her error now that I have pointed it out.

Noa blinks once, slowly, and I notice for the first time that her eyes vary in shading. Dark on the edges of the iris and light between. Something about them makes me want to take out my brush and paint them.

Her voice pulls me from my thoughts, "Because I can. And because I'm a medic and I can damn well metabolize it before I get hungover."

I think on that.

"Sounds logical," I decide aloud, and Noa laughs. Is she laughing at me?

"Yeah, I like the sound of that. 'Logical.' More like just irresponsible enough and just skilled enough to get away with a bad decision and breaking rules," Noa … corrects me. But it isn't a criticism. Odd.

"One should follow the rules set by superiors," I reminded her.

Noa doesn't seem to take my warning to heart. She cocks her head, those shaded eyes studying me.

"Maybe," She finally says. "But as shinobi we must always be aware that as much as we lie, those around us will lie as well. A rule set by a superior or a client may not be in the best interest of ourselves, our teammates, or the village. If we know for sure that a rule is ineffective, or that a rule may do more harm than good, must we still follow it?"

I blink, and she's gone - the bell chiming behind her.

What did that have to do with drinking?

* * *

 **HATAKE KAKASHI**

The ANBU that lands in front of me is frankly unexpected. After all, I already have a mission tomorrow, and I haven't broken any more rules than usual.

"Hatake-san. You are to report immediately to the Hokage Tower to meet with Hokage-sama," The Mouse masked ANBU reports. Aw, one of Sasuke-chan's little ANBU is branching out with his captain gone.

Cute.

Well, the Hime can wait a couple hours.

* * *

"Glad to see you finally dignified us with your presence, Hatake," Is my greeting from the Hokage when I finally vault in through the window.

'Us' meaning Gai, Shikaku, Tsunade, Tonton, Shizune, and myself.

This isn't just some little meeting.

'Maybe I should've been on time …'

"What is this about?" I get out, examining the room. With this assortment …

"Nothing discussed here leaves this room," Tsunade orders in place of a response. "This is about Noa."

I feel my stomach drop, but the Godaime's expression is grimm and frustrated, not worried or angry. She's probably fine. Probably.

"What about Noa-hasu?" Gai asks, abandoning his headstand and sounding the kind of serious he only gets when Noa is the topic of conversation.

The Head Medic massages her forehead, and I feel myself getting more and more on edge. "In recent years," Tsunade grits out in an impossible to name emotion, "Shikaku, Shizune, and myself have all started to notice things about Noa that don't line up."

"You don't mean that you think she's a spy? A traitor?" I ask in horror, unable to even comprehend the accusation.

Thankfully Tsunade simply shakes her head, "No. She has proven her loyalty to this village and those in it far too much and too early on for any chance of that. No, it's more like she happens to have the village's interest in mind while also knowing more and being able to do more than she's letting on."

Gai vocalizes my thoughts before I can, "How do you mean?"

Shikaku chips in for the first time at that, expression typically blank. "Her vocabulary for one."

Immediately I make the connection, "You mean her English."

The Jonin Commander simply nods, "I may not be one of the people that was taught English, but a toddler should not have the vocabulary to understand and explain detailed concepts in her native language with only one person to teach her. I looked into the reports of the ANBU assigned to attempt to decode her language and then cross referenced them to the reports that you, Kakashi, made. They gave up too early: the issues of syntax, pronunciation, homophones, and general sentence structure would've been overcome over time. The problem was vocabulary."

"They were looking for patterns in the kinds of words that a three year old would've known," I finish for him, feeling grim. "And because her vocabulary was so advanced they never found one."

"I once asked Noa-hasu where it was that she learned such unyouthful cuss words…" Gai muses, "She told me it didn't matter."

Tsunade sits forward at this, seeing that Gai and I were finally realizing just how significant this all was. "Noa always seems well informed on the kind of things that only the Hokage and those directly involved should know. She claims that she listens, goes looking on her own but that can't all be it, though I'm sure that's it's part. Kakashi, Gai. Are there any times where Noa did something - said something - that she shouldn't have known to do? Anything at all?"

I think back. I don't want to, but I do. But once I look it's all there: Noa knowing about me, the bell test. Asking for the escort mission as our first C-Rank, her talking down Zabuza. Her family, her bloodline limit. The fights, the forest of death. When she lectured the Sandaime, Jiraiya and my relationship with Naruto. Her attitude towards Danzo …

"Yes," I confirm when I find my voice. "Yes, she has shown that."

Tsunade sits back in her chair, her mouth fixed into a grim line. "Well then. We compare notes on Noa, and then tomorrow when Kakashi goes to Moeru, you are find out everything you can about where the hell my mysterious apprentice came from."


	5. THE TOPAZ AMONGST THE JADE

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

With a satisfied groan, I roll over into Stag's warm side - the old bed creaking with the simple movement. The morning light persists just beyond my eyelids, insisting that I open my eyes. When I eventually - reluctantly - give in to the sun's demands I can just barely see the wall of the disused room over Shika's miles of tanned chest.

Worse things to wake up to, I'd think.

Knowing I had obligations (and Shika could only disappear for so long) I get up - dressing from the sloppy pile of various clothing items on the dusty floor. I frown lightly at the dirt stains on my vest, but resign myself to it. There were only so many advantages to 'meeting' in an abandoned Nara house on the edge of the property. Eh. Shika was worth it.

Speaking of the great lump of concentrated laziness and shadows, the man himself is finally stirring due to the sudden lack of my body heat next to him. Maybe a few years down the line we wouldn't have to hide like this -

Stop that thought. After the war that only I knew was coming - only then will I allow myself to think about the future. Not now.

With a parting kiss from my sleepy boyfriend, I slip out the door silent as night and take to the skies.

* * *

 **HATAKE KAKASHI**

When Noa shows up, all worries about trust and what she was keeping from us were thrown out the window at the sight of the disgusting mark on her neck.

"Chibi-chan-" I start, my voice dangerous as I begin to plot the death of various suspects. "Is that a hickey I see?"

Noa - who had frozen at my tone - doesn't have time to stop her hand from flying up to cover the heinous mark next to her Seal. She aborts the movement too late but tries to cover it up with an awkward laugh. "Kakashi," She tries to play off. "Don't be so protective. It's just something I got from sparring."

As I begin to formulate the words for a ban from any such type of 'sparring,' the Aburame Heir shows up only to catch the tail end of the conversation.

"Speaking of, Noa." Shino chimes in (and I feel my eyes bulge at the lack of honorifics. I had heard those rumors thank you, but -) "You and I should spar after this mission. I would much enjoy a rematch."

Oh. A 'rematch' is it?

' Not on my watch-!'

Noa just laughs and agrees, and I've already begun to plot the imminent destruction of the Aburame heir when Shikamaru shows up.

He takes one look at what I suppose must be a very dangerous expression on my face, glances at Shino and Noa, and takes a prudent step back.

"Troublesome …" The shadow user grumbles.

* * *

 **UCHIHA SASUKE**

Just as my training demanded for the past six years, I rise before the sun.

However, I did not expect Naruto to be awake as well.

As I sip my tea, exiting the compound, I allow myself a moment to be surprised before settling down beside a meditating Naruto. As I peer at his stoic features, there's just a hint of orange around the fuuinjutsu master's eyelids.

Mediating to align with nature chakra, then.

I leave the Sage to do his Sage-y things as I sit straight backed, watching with nostalgia the view of the rising sun from the Uchiha compound. I'd missed this.

When I was in ANBU, it didn't take long for me to realize that it was the little things you missed when you go dark. The taste of the tea Noa made. Naruto's laugh. Meals after training, just the four of us. And the sunrise above my clan compound. I had wanted to watch this sunrise for six years.

'And now I'm doing it next to my closest friend-'

\- That thought caught me off guard. Did I consider Naruto the one I was closest to?

I guess so. Before … before the world ended and I lost everything, Noa and Itachi and my mother were the ones I turned to - who I went to for attention or comfort or to impress. But that was Before.

After ?

It was both of them, at first - Naruto and Noa. Naruto and I were still rivals and didn't always get along and Noa always knew what to say but was so distant…

But when Noa started to seek out Shikamaru, I started to seek Naruto - and I realized that as much as I loved Noa, I loved Naruto just as much … but differently.

I guess it took me six years with no true identity and only my thoughts for intimate company to realize it. Noa was family. Kakashi and Tenzo were family but -

Maybe Naruto was a little more.

But that doesn't matter now. Neither of us are going anywhere, so I'll live in the moment. Enjoy the sunset I missed next to the man I missed.

With a smile on my lips I don't bother trying to hide, I sip my tea.

* * *

 **TSUBASA HIROMA**

I look down at the Root operative kneeling at my feet.

Without saying a word, I hold out my hand and a scroll appears in it so fast that, had I not been jounin level myself, I would've doubted the figure had moved at all. Pity the meagre number of Tsubasa left were not so highly trained.

Hino was not a jounin, for one. And as I break the seal on the scroll and begin to read, my peripheral picks up her startle and the sway of her stick straight jade hair as she rocks back on her heels.

' Green hair, ' I think idly as I scan the document. ' Another indication that the demon child was a pest to begin with, ' I think as I tuck my own emerald locks behind my ear. ' No true Tsubasa has dark hair.'

Pushing bitter thoughts aside, I turn to the message - ignoring the messenger.

… So the upstart girl was coming after all. Bringing a Aburame, a Nara, and Sharingan Kakashi with her.

That may be a problem. If indeed the false Clan Head - my rightful place - is Hisoka as I dread-

Well, they do not know our ways nor our jealously guarded Kekkei Genkai. The girl is not tied by blood, she cannot possess it. We shall overpower them easily.

After all, a chakra corrupted demon trash whore holds no challenge to a name as prestigious as the Tsubasa.

I have the backing of the true Konoha, after all.

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

Moeru is quiet when we arrive.

I immediately am on guard.

I think back on what I know about the town as I scan the barren remains of a market. Moeru … used to be a small village. More like a hamlet, really, before the last Shinobi war pushed too far past the borders into the nearby fields resulting in one of the most destructive battles in the Land of Fire, commonly called Red Earth for how much blood was spilt and how effectively Iwa tore up the ground with their assault.

With fields destroyed and too little time and resources to return them to a usable state, Moeru's citizens cleared out, moving further from the front and into villages that needed labor for farming.

An empty village with no one to come knocking demanding its return. Clever, Tsubasa. Yet it begs the question of where the Tsubasa intend to go with their claim of Headship. Such titles are useless here.

At that thought I slouch lazily even further, falling back on the lazy Nara persona carefully cultivated by each and every one of my clansmen. The laziness was true, yes. But never on the field. Not as a jounin. Not with Noa at risk.

Shino falls in line with me, and I give him a friendly smirk. I like the Aburame - glad he tagged along - far more than I did in the Academy. He's got a sadistic streak in him, and was willing to put it to good use to get the village off my back about Noa.

(If he wasn't so head over heels for Inuzuka Hana, I would've almost be concerned He was a good actor.)

"These Tsubasa…" The Heir starts slowly, and I have to channel chakra into my ears just to hear him properly (Shino needs to remember that not everyone has Inuzuka level hearing …), "What do they look like? Shall we expect one such as Noa?"

The 'Someone as exotic as Noa' goes merely implied.

I hold the frown off my face, but still feel it tugging at the sides of my lips. Truth was, I didn't know what to expect any more than Shino did. Noa, as always, was enigmatic about what she remembered of her family. All she said to look out for was -

"Green hair-" I find myself saying just as I locked eyes with a figure who appeared at the end of the road, not 20 feet in front of where Kakashi has taken point.

' It's a woman, ' Is the first thing I note. The second being: ' Holy shit, she's taller than GAI. '

The towering figure has hair the same shade as the new leaves of the Shodaime trees in Konoha, stick straight and hanging to her waist. Razor sharp bangs hang precisely along the line of her eyebrows, accenting the sharp angle of her yellow eyes and the milky paleness of her skin.

Pale to tanned. Yellow to deep blue. Straight to curly. Towering to petite.

There has never been two beings so alien to each other than the girl I love and this woman.

Noa falls just short of ten feet away from the green figure - Kakashi, Shino, and I all falling into a loose arc behind her. She stands tall, in the sort of quiet grace and defiance I have come to associate with her dealing with overly formal individuals she would much rather run through on her sai.

"Greetings, Tsubasa-san." Noa begins, her voice level and clear. "We have come to Moeru to confirm rumors of the reestablishment of the Tsubasa Clan here. We wish to offer an opportunity to our fellow clansmen to join Konohagakure no Sato as citizens of the Leaf. May we arrange to speak with your Head?"

The woman inclines her head elegantly, but seems entirely too pleased about the height difference between herself and the rest of us - Noa especially. "Greetings, Shinobi. I am Tsubasa Hirona, the Lady of the Tsubasa Clan. I will arrange for you to see my husband, the Clan Head, in time."

(Great, verbal volleying. Using her own title but not even gracing Noa with her surname. Arranging 'in time' for her to meet the 'Clan Head' even though there's no paperwork to go with it.)

Noa doesn't react to the insult of her lack of proper (Clan Head she may be, she didn't take on the name until she was 12) name but instead nods gracefully. "Many thanks for arranging such a meeting, Hirona-san."

(There you go. Don't dignify that with any dispute, just turn it on her so that she has to do the work. Nice going with the form of address as well.)

'Maybe I should be keeping Noa from spending so much time with Ino …'

Hirona's lips twitch in irritation, but she pushes through, "Of course. May I have your names, Shinobi?"

Kakashi steps forward gracefully, assuming the role of herald - ensuring that although the Tsubasa had few enough numbers for her to meet them and introduce herself, Noa was at no such disadvantage.

"Of course, Hirona-san." Kakashi allows, voice as sweet and dangerous as honey. "Might I introduce the Lady and Clan Head of the Tsubasa Clan, Tsubasa Noa-dono?"

Hirona's eyes flash violently at the introduction, and I can feel Shino begin to gather his kikaichu -

"Well then," Hirona bites out, all apparent presence of politeness gone. "With claims as dangerous as those, Noa - you are to see Hiroma-dono immediately."

As Hirona whirls around to lead the way, something truly dangerous ripples through the air and I feel dread build in the pit of my gut.

* * *

 **HATAKE KAKASHI**

There was a secondary, even stronger tension between Noa and this Hirona woman after those last two phrases. Hirona tensed at Noa's title but Noa -

Noa tensed at the name 'Hiroma,' the apparent Clan Head.

Did Noa know this Hiroma? Why would she be so anxious if she did?

As I follow a stiff, regal Noa I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of Team 7's signed code - developed through rude gestures and the English writing system.

'No English. Proceed with caution,' She ordered.

Shikamaru falls back to inform Shino as I flank Noa, stomach sinking at the implications of such an order.

'No English.' 'Demon.' 'With claims as dangerous as those.'

What were we getting into?

* * *

Tsubasa Hiroma reminds me very strongly of Uchiha Fugaku, when he was still alive.

Pale skin, regal mannerism, easy grace, and the kind of complete and utter confidence that only comes with firmly believing you are the most dangerous person in the room.

He looks eerily like Hirona - the same eyes, same face shape, same height. Same shade of hair, but his is pulled to a low binding and is elegantly cast over his right shoulder. With so few numbers and such highly valued blood purity, the two Tsubasa very well may hold a close blood relation.

(I hold back a shudder at the thought.)

And for all Hiroma moves, he may have been cast from stone - until he latches his sickly yellow eyes on Noa -

The effect is immediate.

His previous glimpse of grace dissolves in an instant and is replaced with derision and malice. This man holds no love for my Chibi-chan, my imouto, and I'm immediately on guard.

No one speaks. Noa settles a respectful - and safe - distance from the throne like chair Hiroma lounges in with the rest of the squad flanking her. Hirona leaves our side to stand beside her husband, affecting the impression of an obedient child.

It's disgusting .

"And the Demon returns," Hiroma mockingly greets after the tension stretches on, voice dripping with something truly foul . "Claiming our blood, as it has no such right."

My hand nearly twitches, itching to put a kunai in Hiroma's mocking neck.

I recognized the cold fury, the building burn, that raged whenever the village would scorn Naruto growing in my gut. I saw Shikamaru's stance change from the Nara lazy grace into something much angrier and much deadlier. I process how the low buzz of Shino's bugs rises and drops in tone dangerously.

But my eyes are on Noa. Noa looks just as carved from stone as this bastard was, but not in deadly anger or derision or disgust - in the elegant and deadly confidence of a bird of prey.

"Now now," Noa scolds, her voice light and airy yet sharper and more deadly than a poisoned kunai. "There's no reason for that."

Hiroma begins to leak killing intent, making his wife nervous and sweaty, but Noa is unbothered. She stands tall and firm as Hiroma rises intimidatingly to his full height, a full two feet above Chibi-chan, in a clear mark of aggression.

"You would dare speak to me in my own house with such a tone, girl ?" Hiroma growls, each word affected as an insult. "You are as pitiful as you were when you left this place, Hisoka."

Noa freezes at the name and the feeling in my gut changes. Sharply, the anger is overtaken by dread as my fears shift into something much more tangible and much more worrying-

Because I know that as long as Noa had been in Konoha she had never been called that. Because I know that this is the exact thing I was ordered to look into and find the answer to by my Hokage. Because I know that Noa hid all this for what must be a good reason (I refuse to believe otherwise) and by being here, we are risking everything she sought to hide.

But I have no choice .

The moment of horrible, frozen time passes just as quickly as it came, and without warning Noa reaches out with her chakra in a brilliant flare of power: chains shooting up through the wooden floors, binding Hiroma and Hirona in place in a show of aggression and might.

"Now that -" Noa grits out, through exertion or anger, when the creak of the chains finally settles. "Was uncalled for."

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

'Hisoka.'

'Secret.' The Tsubasa's shameful little wretch. The girl that no one wanted to believe that the beautiful Clan Lady - forced into marriage through politics and bribery - would have sired.

I looked into it. Of course I did - six years is a long time, after all. The Tsubasa numbered under thirty when I was born. When Kumo attacked their previous residence, a village far too close to the border to have been a sane choice, it was estimated that if any were to have survived the attack their numbers would've been less than ten.

My bitter bastard of a father just had to be one of them, didn't he?

'Hisoka' he said. A taunt.

The Tsubasa's little secret.

Not so little anymore.


	6. A COWARD'S VOICE

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

"I am not here to fight," I state, forcing my voice to be level. "But I will not abide by being insulted . This is not the barren town I fled well before Kumo hit. I am not the child you took one look at and dismissed out of hand, Father . I am not some dirty little secret you kept for the sake of your pride - I am Tsubasa Noa, Clan Head of the nearly eradicated Tsubasa Clan and Elite Jounin of Konohagakure no Sato, trained by Lady Tsunade herself. I have slaved day and night turning the name I was told I didn't even deserve into something synonymous with hard work and change . You, you pathetic excuse for a man, do not get to call me pitiful ."

I huff with exertion. I've done it now. I could've denied his claims, acted confused, but not now. Now I know that every aspect of who I am will be targeted and examined by everyone I love.

And I deserve it. Because I lied.

But I'll deal with this mess first.

(And I'll pretend that I don't feel the betrayal coming off Shika in waves.)

* * *

 **TSUBASA HIROMA**

I glared furiously at the defiant brat who dared attempt to take my title. My anger boils like a kanton jutsu in my gut, and the twitch of my chakra in my veins demanding to be used - to take the chakra from these insufferable chains -

Chains.

This is not the Uzumaki technique. It cannot be, the freak never had enough chakra to perform those Adamantine Chains …

Meaning the girl somehow got our bloodline -

"Impossible," I hear myself saying lowly. Then I'm suddenly furious : "So you were a Tsubasa after all, little demon. Then your freakishness did come from that whore of a woman, your 'mother.'"

The Nara that came growls, and I would be worried if not for the laziness of their kind - besides, the Aburame stopped him with a single arm. Clearly not in charge - most likely barely a chunin.

Sharingan Kakashi, though. He is looking at the scene with the kind of detached horror one would expect when you're betrayed by one you care about. Danzo had been clear - the Hatake saw my apparent daughter as family. Pack, in a canine sense - the mutt .

I know the feeling of betrayal of family all too well. After all, I loved Minae until she birthed a demon speaking in tongues.

Now I only feel bitterness.

My observations are cut short when Hisoka laughs menacingly. "Oh, her?" She chuckles. "I've no love for a woman who I never met - much less one who married someone as pathetic as you. And your second wife? I remember having an aunt - hello, Hirona-oba! Like sleeping with your twin brother?"

Hirona blushes furiously - which is unacceptable, she should have better control over herself - and begins to stutter and lose face; I cut her off before she can disgrace our name any further.

"Silence," Comes my order. "Purity must be maintained in our bloodline."

"Purity means having kids with three toes and eight eyes?" Hisoka asks with fake innocence. "Well then, I better tell everyone! I was still under the impression that purity came from a diversified gene pool. "

Hirona finds her voice, viciously: "We tried that. How else did you expect that we gained the curse of your existence?"

The buzz in the room - no doubt coming from the disgusting Konoha insect - rises in pitch suddenly; I realize only now that the sound has steadily been getting louder. I spare the boy barely a glance, confident that my speed and skill could surpass his kikaichu, easily.

"Hirona-san," The Aburame cuts through the air - interrupting my observations - mildly. "Do well to remember how Noa is not first a Tsubasa, but a Shinobi of Konoha."

Hirona flinches, but any thoughts of the blatant insult my sister and wife presented my bastard whore of a daughter is cut off by my recognition of what name she has taken upon herself.

'Noa.' Love.

I can't help but laugh.

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

'Hisoka.'

The name echoes around my head, swirling and swarming with other clips - facts, words - of the worst day of my life.

(Forget the invasion; when I thought Noa was dying; when the retrieval mission went so wrong. This - this horrible, betrayed feeling in my gut … evidence that the woman I loved - who I wanted to love till my dying day - was a liar? A traitor ?)

'Hisoka. Tsubasa Hisoka. Father. Demon. Whore. The barren town I left well before Kumo hit. Hisoka.'

'Hisoka. Hisoka. Hisoka.'

It echoes.

When Hiroma insults Noa, it's instinct to stand up for her - to shoot down her opposition, as I always have. As I always will.

Right?

But I don't. Because 'always' came before 'Hisoka.'

I tune right as the apparent father of the woman I love begins to laugh foully.

"Noa?" He mocks, teeth - perfect, uniform, white teeth - bared. " 'Love ?' What love does the world have for a monster ?"

Noa looks truly hurt - if only for an instant, and in a way only someone who knew her well ('or did I?') would recognize - for the first time since we followed a furious Hirona straight into this disaster. "I have those who love me." She shoots back, volleyed like a kunai.

But was that doubt? Why would she doubt that she was loved. Naruto, Sasuke, Tsunade, they didn't know. They still loved her -

'They' …

Did I?

I wanted to.

"Oh? And how could that be?" Hiroma digs deeper - finding a weak point and exploiting it mercilessly. (I can't stop him - or maybe I can but I don't know how ), "How can you love a lie?-"

'How can you love a lie?

"-That's what this 'Noa' is, after all-"

'Why should I love a lie?'

"-Just another name for a squealing, mutant lump who spewed words and customs of the demons - polluting our household-"

'She lied. For so long she lied-'

"- Cursing our Clan. Killing our people-"

'Did she ever truly love me? Was I just a tool to her?'

"-You're to blame! You are the reason that we have been reduced to this -"

'Team 7. Team Gai. Me, my parents, my family - were we just means to an end?-'

"-It is because of the curse you brought upon our name that we number only five, now! -"

'- She said she loved me not four hours ago -

" - But no longer! Even if it kills us all we will not allow you to pollute our legacy!"

'But how can you love a lie?'

And the room explodes in chaos.

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

When fifteen ROOT agents crash through the doors aside three unfamiliar jade haired kunoichi, I don't even hesitate.

Immediately I'm targeted, and I know that this truly was the trap Sasuke and Ruto feared it would be.

So I do what I've always - as long and short as that is - done. I've shifted into a familiar stance and called my chakra forth.

It's instinct, at this point. And I think that that is the worst part of the killing. I've killed so many, fought so many, that -

It just doesn't matter anymore.

And it doesn't.

But it should.

It should matter that I put kunai made of my own life energy through the chests of six agents who never even had the right to own a name.

It should matter that before Hirona can follow her twin in the path of escaping my chains I've crushed her ribs with enough force that her lungs popped.

It should matter that with a familiar pull of my chakra I've got a sai in each hand and I'm cooly and efficiently cutting through the lines of shinobi - the last of my family included.

(But of all the things that should bother me … that my fellow Konoha nin don't come to my aid actually does .)

'But maybe bother isn't the word. Hurt . Hurt is the word.'

And then I stand alone in front of the man I never called father - but without the memories of a different life I probably would've.

('I wouldn't have felt this betrayed, if I - for once - was normal. Was just Noa , not a phantom long dead.')

He stands, graceful in the face of the eradication of what was left of his clan.

It's a well created farce, but I can see the fury through his mask. I feel it myself.

'I suppose family not stopping at blood isn't quite true,' I muse as I flick the blood off my sai. 'Family doesn't even start there.'

* * *

 **HATAKE KAKASHI**

In an instant Noa has killed a squadron of unidentified nin and the rest of her clan save her ass of a father.

Is this what my teaching does? Is? A tool to end those who you should've held close to your heart?

'No ,' A voice says in the back of my head. 'Hiroma brought this upon himself - and his clan - for attacking her.'

But Noa … Hisoka … is a healer. She never liked killing.

I still remember the hunch of her shoulders - marred by scars that she should've never suffered through - as she washed the blood from her tunic in the waters of Wave.

Has she changed so much?

'Or did I ever really know her?'

Hiroma has retreated into his previous, stone-cold persona, in the face of the fury rapidly thickening the air in the room; killing intent weighing the air down like the sky was crushing the earth.

The silence is deafening.

"You hold more power than expected, Daughter."

At first an audible grit of teeth is his only response, but only for an instant.

"This was the work of Danzo - of ROOT," She hisses - a statement, not a question. "He set you up to kill me. Why?"

'Danzo?'

Hiroma grins menacingly, teeth bared. "Don't you know?" He mocks, "He wants you -"

"And you'd give me to him?" She cuts him off, furious. "Is there nothing you wouldn't do to hurt me? Torment me?"

Her grief seems to set something off in Hiroma, and his smile becomes all the more genuine while also all the more menacing. "Oh, didn't you know? Demons don't deserve to live , much less be happy ."

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

With the echo of 'demons' through my head, I run my sai through the heart of my father.

I should've felt something. Satisfaction, anger. Resentment, relief.

I just felt numb.

My sai dissolves, sapphire chakra dissipating - a fog lowering to the earth, returning to nature.

Returning.

That wasn't an option anymore, was it?

Not after this. Never after this.

The thud of Hiroma hitting the ground jerks me out of my downward spiral.

(It wasn't supposed to be this way -)

"You won't supposed to find out like this."

Was that really my voice? The sound of broken, rough, anguish? Was that who I was now?

"I was going to say … something. Someday. When the Akatsuki was destroyed and Orochimaru died - was killed. I was going to but -"

My excuses are weak -

'Pitiful .'

"You were born this way?" Shino clarifies, and I wish it didn't sound so betrayed, accusatory.  
I close my eyes, determinately keeping my back to my once-friends. (If I can't see their faces, I can almost pretend they aren't shattered.) "What would I have said?"

My question reverberates through the deadened room.

"What would you have believed ?" I continue as I find my voice, "That I was born knowing a language that didn't exist? Or that my parents looked as beautiful and normal as any true Tsubasa was - should've been?"

God I sound so bitter.

I look down at my hands. They've held chakra and blades and family and food and Shika -

"What would you have had me say ?" I ask, desperate but fighting to hide it. "I was a three year old, far too smart for her age, who had fled her home where the only person who treated her as human was the Nanny . I was too smart, had too much control over my chakra, and knew a language that seemingly sprung from nowhere - I was the ideal spy, though I wasn't. I wasn't -"

(I choke.)

"I stayed low - I had to. Stuck to the flower district until … Ruto. Because Ruto was just like me, the demon of Konoha just as I was the demon of the Tsubasa. Their dirty little secret -"

(I pretend I don't hear Kakashi flinch.)

"But it would've still been fine." I sob out, feeling as if a dam had broken, "I could've just stayed low, opened a shop - worked as a waitress. I wanted to - honestly did. I don't like to fight … But then we met Sasuke and Itachi and the massacre - and I realized that sitting back and doing nothing when I could've would've killed me. I was never supposed to get too close. I was only going to protect them until they passed me and could protect themselves."

My voice cracks, and I realize I'm crying. When was the last time I cried?

"But then I was too deep and I could never go back - didn't want to."

Weak. Pitiful. Demon.

(They don't deserve me - but I deserve this.)

I scrub at my face, an idle thought passing through my mind - glad that I hadn't bothered to put on mascara for a good impression.

I'm disgusted with myself.

I have to make a choice. I have to - need to. I have no choice but to choose.

Stag cannot love me - and why should he? Ruto, Sasuke -  
Orochimaru.

Nagato.

Akatsuki.

Obito -

I can't go back. With Madara and Obito and Nagato and Orochimaru out there the people in Konoha (Gai, Kakashi, Sasuke, Ruto, Tsunade, Shikamaru -) are under threat -

I turn around, slowly - as unthreatening as possible - and force my eyes to lock on to my companions. Shino is more stoic than ever; his insects blanketed out just feet from me and coating each of the dead bodies. Kakashi is horror-struck; a kunai gripped tightly in each hand. And Shika -

I can't look at him. I can't -

But if this is the last time I get to say it, I want it to mean something.

So I look up. I look the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with straight in the eyes and I say it.

"I love you. I have always loved you."

And with a surge of chakra and flared feathers -

I fly away and force myself not to look back.


	7. FOR THE SAKE OF THOSE LEFT BEHIND

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **SENJU TSUNADE**

"Hokage-sama!"

I look up from my unreasonable pile of paperwork just in time to see a chunin I couldn't be bothered to remember the name of bolt into my office: a Sunagakure hawk on his shoulder and half-opened scroll in his hand.

"Hokage-sama!" He repeats, panting. "It's the Kazekage! He's been kidnapped!"

Something in my stomach plumits with all the implications of such an act.

"Shizune!" I holler, heart racing. "Get me Tenten, Neji, Lee, Naruto, and Sasuke!"

* * *

 **UZUMAKI NARUTO**

Sasuke and I get our summons at the exact same time.

" I have a bad feeling …" I hear Sasuke mutter.

I glance over, " Not about Gaara."

Sasuke just shakes his head, eyes on something far in the horizon. " No ."

I nod once, solidly, and push the tension mounting in my gut to the side. " She's going to be fine ," I state - half assuring myself, half willing it to be true. " She's going to be fine. "

* * *

 **HATAKE KAKASHI**

Noa isn't even fully out the gaping hole in the wall before I'm launching myself after her -

Only to be swarmed en-mass by the Aburame Heir's kikaichu.

"Shino, move -" I command, eyes locked on Noa's retreating form. "I have to -"

"No, you don't. Why?" Shino levels out, hidden eyes burning into my back. "Because you are not thinking straight. Because a clan is dead save a single woman. Because this was a trap ."

I rip my eyes from the point in the distance where my only sister has vanished, "She's a shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato."

"No," Shikamaru contradicts - speaking for the first time in a dull, vacant voice.

I follow his raised finger to the gleam of a hitai-ate resting beside the bodies of Tsubasa Hiroma and Hirona.

"No," Shikamaru repeats as my stomach drops. "She's not."

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

I've been flying for about twenty minutes before I realize my hitai-ate is missing.

A hole had been carved in my heart in its absence. Well, what was left of my heart - after it shattered.

But I feel naked in a way I really shouldn't, but I do regardless. Before I even realize what I'm doing I've twitched my chakra; a gleaming, bright hitai-ate forms around my forehead with a single kanji on it.

Shinobi .

The war's coming, after all.

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

The trek back is a blur. We check in with the gate guardians in a blur - at least for me. Shino … Shino does the talking. I just hand over my ID's.

We beeline for the Hokage's office. Someone … must've gone ahead. Told Godaime-sama that … Noa wasn't with us.

Noa. Hisoka. Noa. Hisoka.

We push open the door. Tsunade stands to great us.

"What the hell happened ?" She demands.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't KNOW .

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

Just as the sun begins to touch the earth, I finally come to a stop.

(Running on fumes, adrenaline, determination could only get one so far, after all.)

I had nothing left to keep me moving through this numbness. Setting up camp is mechanical; nothing too fancy (I'm from Konoha, I live in trees) but after a short hunt and a quick katon jutsu I've cooked myself a rabbit, using sharp herbs to disguise the scent of cooked meat. All perfect Konoha regulation.

(Pretending that the sharp pain at that thought doesn't exist is more difficult than it should be for a shinobi of my caliber.)

What now?

What now.

Noa you can't do this. You can't look at this effectively - not just by thinking. You'll get stuck. It's just a game - like a video game back Before or a-

A game of Shogi. With my Shika.

I have lost most of my effectivity and influence but gained maneuverability. No missions means no papers to get where I need to go, but also means that I am not bound my mission parameters.

I'm a lone piece on the shogi board - a gold general. I am powerful and diverse, but I'm not important enough to be protected. It doesn't matter if I die, only that I can protect the King. My friends. Konoha.

But this isn't shogi. No, this is chess. I'm a rogue queen - powerful, mobile. Determined. This cannot be shogi, because I refuse to be used against those I love. Against my King.

If you kill a Queen, she never comes back. For either side.

(Maybe my death will stick this time.)

Is this type of sacrifice healthy? No, but it is effective . Whether or not I am considered a part of this world doesn't matter anymore - I've changed too much. Once upon a time there was for sure a happy ending. My actions may have changed that. I can't afford to distance myself out of some misplaced bid of self-preservation.

I don't have to make it, anymore. I don't have to have a future. I don't have a future, not one that will matter. So I don't have to save my life. Just have to guarantee everyone else's.

If the world ends, it will all be my fault. I can't die knowing that.

So I'll fight. I'll fix.

But where do I start?

What was the next deadly 'thing' in the timeline? What event? What can I predict?

Threats: Orochimaru, Kabuto, Danzo, Akatsuki, Pein, Obito, Madara, and Zetsu.

Okay, Orochimaru. Oto. He's got Kabuto with him, most likely. They pull a shit ton of people back from the dead during War Number IV, so I have to deal with them. I need to eliminate the chance of me being used against anyone. Of Minato. Of Kushina. Of Sakumo. Of - anyone I couldn't save.

Danzo. Lost a lot of advantage with him, but he's still after me - especially now that I am the only source of my bloodline left. Too valuable to pass up. I'll keep my guard up, but I have to trust my King, to trust Konoha. Have to trust that Kakashi will care enough to go after ROOT, despite how much I've let him down.

Akatsuki and Pein. Pein needs to be reasoned with, in Ame. Konan may be reasoned with … I can't let Jiraiya die. Or Asuma. For the sake of my boys, I can't -

Obito needs to get the seal off his heart. Madara is a puppet. Zetsu -

I don't know enough. I need more information.

I don't remember -

'Enough ,' I cut myself off. ' You'll be dead well before then .'

Prioritize. Danzo has stretched himself too far, especially considering that he revealed ROOT to Kakashi and -

Sasuke and Ruto will ask questions. Kakashi will have to answer them. Danzo needs me alive, but doesn't know where I am or will be. Sasuke killed him last time …

I'm not strong enough to take on Pein. Nagato has too much of an advantage on me. With his Paths and with Konan and the Akatsuki to back him up …

Oto it is. Time to kill Kabuto.

* * *

 **SENJU TSUNADE**

The creak of my desk is the only thing that tells me just how tight I've been gripping it.

My shinobi haven't said a word. Shizune hasn't said a word.

My office is quiet.

Abruptly I turn away, away from where Hatake Kakashi has fallen apart and where Nara Shikamaru is just an eerie mirror of me after Orochimaru and where Aburame Shino is the only one in this room with anything even resembling composure.

I look out the window. To the monument.

What was that she said? Noa - Hisoka - once griped about how absurd the monument was. Going on about how it was an empty gesture.

'Teach, didn't you know? Something like this' - She had gestured to the monument - 'is only setting our leaders up for failure. After all …'

She had a maniac grin on her face.

'The bigger they are, the harder they fall.'

She wasn't big. Not in the cosmic sense, no she wasn't big. But how she laughed at her hangovers and - and - complained about her training and insisted she was fine when she had a temperature through the tower roof -

That was huge.

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

Luck would have it that I had flown so far west that I'd ended up in the Land of Earth.

(How I managed to avoid the patrols …?)

I count myself lucky, however. Not being in Fire makes it so that the chance of correlation between me and Konoha is less likely. I'm not a missing-nin in the traditional sense … yet. Just - literally a shinobi that my home village has no idea how to find. With my new hitai-ate and my foreign features, I can at least hope that my identity will remain at least in question for a decent amount of time.

But ties must be cut. For my sake and theirs - so I start talking to myself, lowly. Konoha's accent isn't harsh, but it is identifiable, especially when Iwa is so detached from Konoha; both in terms of geography and culture. But English is different, leaves a slur to my words when I talk too long. So soon enough, when I switch back to Common after a couple of high flying hours reciting song lyrics I've regained the lilt to my words that made me stick out so much as a kid.

I fly for another couple hours after that (my training demanding somewhere in the back of my mind that 34.5 hours without backup in Rock territory was no bueno ) backtracking while heading north, following the border of Grass. I stop down only long enough for a refill of water and meat before I make a choice. This would all be for naught if anyone - Tsunade, Danzo, Team 7, anyone - could track me. I need to get out -

My map is meagre and frankly became useless three pit stops ago so I abandon it; gazing out at the sea. Land of Iron should be northeast of here.

Land of Iron. The Land of Samurai. Bordering the Land of Sound to the south.

I ready myself for a long flight.

* * *

 **TENZO**

"What do you mean it's Akatsuki?" Crow - Sasuke, Sasuke - demands of Uzumaki-san.

"What else is there to say, Teme?" Uzumaki growls back, eyes closed and stained orange with natural chakra. "I can't feel Gaara - not really - but it's not because he's not here. He's being drained, and the only people powerful enough to go after Bijuu - after Gaara - are the Akatsuki. And after my seal stops flushing out Kankuro's system he'll be able to positively identify them. Hard to miss the shiny-shiny coats."

I look over to Hyuuga-san - Neji - and see a similar look of confused apprehension on his face as I felt on mine.

Senpai hadn't been specific about why Sasuke was going dark, but this?

Who the hell was hunting jinchuriki ?

* * *

 **TSUBASA NOA**

I overshot. Holy shit I overshot - this is bad .

I should've known better. Even on short flights, distance is hard to gauge - this was no excuse -

I landed in the Land of Lightning.

It didn't take me long to realize that, what with the almost immediately noticeable shinobi presence. I had barely landed before my chakra was picked up by the patrols. Bolting, I took to the air again, disguising my chakra signature before I could be spotted - taking high into the air. Riding a current, I assess my options.

Landing in Kumo wasn't exactly a bad thing. I would have the element of surprise by entering the Land of Sound through Lightning territory that I wouldn't have with the Land of Iron. Any advantage was a good advantage, but -

It was now even more dangerous if I were to get caught in foreign territory, especially if I was tied back to Konoha. Foreign features would have spared me slightly in Rock, but only because I was there so briefly. By leaving the territory so quickly, barely being spotted as it was, there was no reason to look into me seriously. But if I wanted to preserve my strength for the trek into Oto, through, prolonged use of my wings was a handicap I couldn't afford.

I needed to disguise myself. And well.

* * *

With a quick henge into a dark skinned Ino with pupils, I check into a rural inn - one with too little customers to ask questions or stay suspicious for long. The place is so dingy I count myself lucky to even have a sink and mirror.

I drop the henge. Drink in Tsubasa Noa for the last time.

Then, steeling myself, I channel chakra into my hands and get started.

Being a medic meant that I learned quite a few totally obscure thing - facts and tidbits I never thought would come in any practical use. That's how I know that the keratin in our hair defines the shape of it, how it falls and how it grows. It's common for perms to affect the keratin using a variety of chemicals that I don't even bother with; I simply reach up and run my chakra coated hand down each chunk of my hair.

It feels like I'm carving off skin. Ripping out parts of myself.

I shared most, if not all, of my characteristics from my past life. The differences were small, really, most likely based more off what chakra did to my body that whatever kind of genetics I really had ... but my hair, oh my hair . It was exactly like it was in my past life. It was tough and curly and refused to listen to me and I hated it - and I had never thought of having it in any other way. No matter how much I complained and griped and struggled, it was part of me - familiar, something to fall back on when this new world became too much.

And now I won't even have that.

In some way this was worse than leaving my hitai-ate behind. Worse than killing my so-called father. Worse than the thought of me dying.

All I had for so long was who I was - how my soul and my mind and my body were mine and untouched in the chaos I was thrust into ... but now with each run of my jutsu I feel less and less like me.

I don't care to worry about how long this is taking - it doesn't matter. All that matters is that eventually straight hair hanging well past my waist swings in long, majestic tresses.

I hate it.

But I can't stop there. I change tracks - hands glowing every so little stronger in a different jutsu - and start again. Chunk by chunk. Segment by segment. Section by section.

Except this time around it's shocking silver that bleeds from beneath my hands, not silk.

'I broke Kakashi's heart. The least I can do is live up to being his sister.'

The pit - the tension - in my gut grows ever so much stronger; the slightest tang of excessive chakra use only enhancing the feeling of wrong. But I carry on, push through, until my hair shines with an ethereal glow only the moon could ever hope to compare to and falls gracefully in a wave of molten silver.

I hate it.

I catch a wisp of hair - wind it around my fingers - and stare with a kind of sick fascination akin to examining a particularly disgusting bug. The dark tan of my skin, even darker after the relentless beating of the sun on my flight across the water, stands out even further with my new hair. It's bizarre .

But I know that I can't stop here, either.

I swallow. Clear my throat uselessly. Push back my apprehension.

I close my eyes, as if my thin lids can save me from the reality of what I must do.

'For Ruto. For Sasuke. For Kakashi. For Gai.'

A pang in my heart.

'For Shikamaru.'

I raise my hands to my eyes.


	8. OF TATTERS AND TABOOS

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

*Bracketing Asterisk Around Italicised Text* - Thoughts in verse. Specifically, raps.

* * *

 **NII YUGITO**

"Yo yo, Yugito-chan. This storyteller we're chasing 's 'parently on the lam," Killer Bee fires off rapidly, teeth bared at the challenge. She glanced over at her fellow jinchuuriki; in his hands was the depressingly thin file that A-sama had shoved at them before booting them both out of the Mission Room. "Little girl's never fought, never shown the signs of a kunoichi - all the same saying she's untrained may just be reachin'~!"

I grimace, frustrated with the whole situation, and snatch the file from his unresisting hands. "Bee, take this seriously. This is a punishment."

"Yugito, my lady, don't you understand? We're only here because I broke some fella's hand-" He retaliates almost indignantly, before I cut him off.

"You broke the Daimyo's cousin's hand, Bee. We're here because you decided to challenge a civilian to an arm wrestling match with your tentacles ."

"Chill, Nii - else you're gonna see that hunting this story spinner'll get harder than it has to be."

I furiously stomp down on the Two-Tails' chakra boiling in my chest. Now is not the time to crush his face in, unfortunately, and I can't afford to lose control in the middle of the Lightning countryside. " Anyway ," I grit out, changing the subject - for both of our sakes. "We need to find this amazing 'Okurimono' soon, or else the Daimyo will be the least of our worries; A-sama will skin the both of us alive."

Bee lets out a full bodied chuckle, shoulders shaking with each round of echoing rumbles, "Careful, Yugito. You go alluding too closely to skinning and the cat in you might just go swimming~!"

"That doesn't even make sense!"

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

"Are you stupid? No - sorry. Let me rephrase. Are you fucking retarded , you useless sack of rotting flesh- ?!"

I flinch at Ino's tone, knowing I deserved it. But I refuse to respond.

"Oh no, you don't ignore me, Nara Shikamaru. You think you can throw yourself into training and 'clan responsibilities' and back to back missions without someone planning to step in? Jounin or not I wil l hand your ass to you if you don't haul yourself out of that damn futon in three seconds- "

I ignore her.

(Big mistake.)

'-Though to date, not my worst one-'

"Oh for Kami's sake -"

I barely have time to brace myself before I'm being flung through the rice door of the Nara guest house I was hiding from the world in. (- Not our guest house, though. I could never go back there -) Flipping myself onto my back, I deign it prudent to remain on the floor - the heels of my palms crushing into my eyes, trying to block my teammate out.

I wanted to drown in my misery.

" Leave , Ino." I hiss, exhausted, mentally and physically - after so many days without being able to sleep.

"No."

I jolt, surprised. That wasn't the Ino I expected. She sounded … harsher.

"Shikamaru, you are going to listen to what I have to say. And then you are going to put some food into your skinny-ass body, and then you will talk to Team 7."

I couldn't muster the energy to argue. I just layed on the ground.

Ino grits her teeth audibly; when she lunged forward to grapple with me, I can hear her coming. To a degree, I'm ready for her to toss me around again - but as I am busy bracing for a relatively painless landing, I am easily caught off guard by Ino's hands on my temples. In an instant chakra is being shoved into my mind faster than -

And I black out.

* * *

 **NII YUGITO**

Even if we hadn't tracked the storyteller here, the buzz and attention such a rural town in Lighting Country was getting would've been enough indication.

Okurimono was here, after all.

And it wasn't really a small town - more like a hamlet: too small to even have a name. It was more of a trading outpost, with no real presence outside a couple of homes; scattered shepherds and farmers; and an all-in-one bar, inn, and community kitchen.

Bee, for once, is silent - and for that I am grateful. According to the reports, the girl spooks easily. If this goes well, then we'd be the first shinobi to even talk to the girl in person without scaring her off.

As the sun begins to go down, the town seems to shift: the people drifting into the hamlet's center.

Let's see what kind of wordsmith would be talented enough to attract the attention of a Daimyo.

* * *

 **'OKURIMONO'**

When I feel a set of chakra signatures large enough to rival even the Sandaime Hokage, I tense. Then I seriously contemplate running.

But … my room fees for this inn are being paid for by this performance. I can't in good conscience leave now - I was raised better than that, despite my … shaky second childhood. I've got morals … in a way.

I take a deep breath, and adjust my bandages. The show must go on.

I exit the inn.

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

With a punch of vertigo and a gasp, I find myself somewhere completely alien (yet still strangely familiar), panting with exertion and surprise and pain and discomfort -

"What-" I cough, gathering my breath. "The hell was that, Ino?" I gather myself, shooting a brief glare at my troublesome teammate before examining my surroundings.

We somehow went from a random guest house to a clearing. No, not a clearing … The Clearing. Our Clearing. But different. Everything is … off - the trees are too tall, the sun too bronzed. The trees are all hollowed out, too - filled with doors, cabinets, arches.

"What the hell...?" I murmur, before it hits me.

"Your mindscape, yes." Ino confirms from behind me. I turn to face her - and I can't help taking a step back when I really see her.

This isn't the Ino I know - not the Ino who stormed my house, determined to cheer me up. This Ino was -

'Wrong-' Echos almost audibly through the clearing, rattling around my brain.

The imposter's hair was flaxen, brittle; an ugly bleached white color - as if her vitality had been sucked out of her. With sullen cheeks and splintered, broken, features, she looked as if she were a ghost. Some kind of … sick imitation. Her clothes were the same as Ino's … almost. The color was just barely off. Her clothes ill fitting in the smallest, most awkward ways. She was close, but not quite-

I look up at her face and my heart stops.

Never, her entire life, has Ino ever had pupils.

"Who are you?" I demand, instantly on guard.

* * *

 **KILLER BEE**

"Heyo, what do you know?" I mutter under my breath, perched on the roof of one of the tiny buildings in this sliver of a hamlet. "Okurimono's gonna start her show."

Okurimono, according to the reports Big Bro A gave Nii and me, was just a random woman (possibly Lightning Country in origin, though unconfirmed) that began to make a name for herself a month or so ago in the smaller towns; being well known to tell stories with some kind of magical power.

There was no confirmed indication of her being trained in the Shinobi arts; there were various cases of artisans who used chakra to augment their work, though it was more common for Kabuki theatre in the Land of Wind. Chakra strings and all.

*Yo yo, but hey, what can you do? The Daimyo wants to see the performance - we shinobi gotta pull through!*

This 'Okurimono' looked not too distant from the typical Lightning Country citizens, though her hair was more silver than white and her skin a tad paler. Perhaps her parents had vastly different complexions. She was dressed in a ragged, poor woman's kimono; she looked like a beggar - as if she were straight out of a folk tale herself...

*The problem though, its gotta be, that with bandages like that there ain't much to see...*

Cuz with bandages wrapped around her eyes, covering her face from the bridge of her nose up, there wasn't much he could tell about how the girl looked. And not knowing something like that?

*Ain't no two ways of saying it - hiding that kind of shit? - Less outrageousness than straight dangerousness-*

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

"Who am I? Oh, because of how I look?" Not-Ino asks dryly, examining a ash-like arm. "What, are you surprised? This is how you see me, these days."

I gulp, tearing my eyes away from my desecrated teammate, "What do you mean?"

Not-But-Possibly-Ino sighs heavily. "Shikamaru," She says lowly, voice akin to how one would approach a skittish fawn. "Look down at yourself."

I swallow roughly, and comply.

"Oh."

I'm dressed … familiarly, yet still alien. Not like the clearing, but … these clothes are from that day. The day we were just us - even if we weren't, not really.

Because that day two years ago, we were on an infiltration mission … yet we were more us than I could've remembered. She and I both were in the Land of Hot Water, disguised as two civilians on a date during a festival. We weren't … ourselves. She had to wear a henge for days at a time, making her curly hair long and blond like the Godaime and her eyes just as golden. But me -

She had insisted that she dress me herself - claiming that I had no taste, that I had no idea what I was doing. That I'd end up looking like a shinobi. I brushed her off as troublesome, but still let her shove me into the pressed slacks, the boots. I let her bully me into a maroon button-down shirt; sleeves rolled up my forearms. She demanded I'd wear my hair down, free. Swinging loose.

I was dressed how She dressed me that day - the day she said I was handsome, and that she was so lucky to have me. The day she said everything she wanted to under the face of another; somehow still making it all seem so genuine -

I've only ever dressed like this once ...

The only difference … the hole punched through my chest.

I cover the gaping, numb wound with a shaking hand, foolishly. As if the hunk of flesh missing could possibly be covered up by my useless, pitiful hands. As if I could somehow fix the weeping, ragged hole that was where I once had a heart.

Before it was ripped out of me.

Tears lay, unshead, in my eyes.

I wish they would fall. Oh, Kami, I wish they would fall.

* * *

 **NII YUGITO**

As the crowd gathers, Okurimono begins to tap out a strong rhythm on a small metal drum she carried with her, a hapi. The music was eerie, sounding out into the air with an echo-

And she began her story.

Suddenly, the pile of wood in front of her catches alight; a campfire no bigger than a cookfire lighting without warning. The audience jumps, but the children in the front aren't frightened, only startled into laughter. The smoke and steam from the wet wood curls into tendrils, seeming to sway with the beat of the music. It takes a second before I realize that, yes, the smoke was moving. She was moving it.

"There is a word that not many use anymore…" The mysterious storyteller begins, her voice strangely accented; rough with disuse yet still smooth with youth. She must've been 20, 21 at most. She plays on. "The word is 'taboo,' and people forget what it once meant."

"Taboo isn't just a word that referred to an action that was frowned upon, oh no. Taboo was something forbidden by the heavens themselves."

With that she strikes the drum, the sound quickly followed by a lightning strike within the mist - as if the smoke was a thundercloud that belonged far above our heads, yet was somehow brought down to earth.

"The heavens whisper, you know," The girl continued. "They speak to all. You can hear them, when you are at your worst. Or at your best. Or even as you close your eyes to breathe in the fresh air after a rainstorm."

"And if you stop, if you pause in the hustle and bustle of life for just a moment - just a second -" The silver-haired woman pauses, hands pressed tightly to the drum beneath her fingers - deadening the sound into a tense, anticipatory silence. "- you can hear your taboo being whispered from your heart."

The children - the adults, even - are riveted.

Okurimono begins her drumming again.

"Some taboos don't make sense. Some make too much sense - but hear me all: no matter how absurd one's taboo may be, it is written in their hearts." The woman levels her bandaged eyes as the gathered villagers, listening raptly. "You'd be best to remember that."

And, just for a second, a civilian girl a decade younger than myself seems to look directly at me -

But she's back to her story.

"Of course, far more dangerous than tempting another to stray from their path … is straying yourself," Okurimono comments, almost arily. The mist shifting, tendriling, until it grows to form the image of two men, walking along a path. Yugito's breath caught in her throat at the skill, the beauty of such a performance.

"There were once two men," Okurimono's voice sounds out, body hidden by her mist - tinted oh so slightly with chakra. "Strangers, traveling along the same path - bonding over their travels. One, like many, did not know what his taboo was. His people had forgotten how to listen to their hearts, to the heavens."

Of the two grey figures, one stretches languidly, catlike. Color began to bleed before their eyes, coloring the first man's garments a startling purple. It was … curious. And impressive.

"The second man," The wordsmith continued. "Listened to his heart. Listened to the heavens. And the heavens told him -"

Dramatic pause, a silent beat in the music.

"That he was never to eat the meat of a deer."

Yugito felt herself jerk in surprise despite herself, startled. As the music resumed, more upbeat - faster, the audience laughed -

And without even needing to enhance her hearing, Yugito could tell that Bee was laughing too.

"Absurd though it was, the second man-" Whose garments were now a light, almost white, green "-knew to follow his heart, to respect his taboo. And so, he never ate the meat of a deer."

The first man, the one in purple, pulled a bow as the music changed to something more anticipatory. Like a hunter stalking their prey.

"The first man went hunting one day on their travels, however... -" An arrow golden like the sun pierced the hide of a misty doe, still young enough to have it's white spots. The children gasped at the display, whispering amongst themselves at the development. " -And managed to win them a magnificent deer. The first man could hardly wait to begin preparing his catch; proud to have gotten such a delicious meal."

"Of course, the second man knew that he should not touch a morsel of the deer, afraid to even help prepare it with his friend. He told his friend as such."

A campfire was built within the mist, and the man in purple began to skin and joint the deer; his friend hovering in the background. The first man looked up at the second in clear confusion, then derision.

"The hunter was confused. He had never bothered in believing in the heavens, in their taboos. He saw them as excuses, reasons people made up to get out of things they had no stomach for. He told his friend as such."

"Oh, but the second man was adamant: 'No, my friend,' he said, voice strong. 'I will not go against my heart,'" Okurimono laughed ominously, her music hiccupping for a moment at the unexpected reaction. "But the first man would hear none of it, yet he laid off, for the moment. Instead he focused on preparing his meal. -" The figure resumed his cooking, the misty campfire giving off a warm glow. "- He cut the meat carefully, sure to trim the fat just so. He took herbs from his bag - garlic and cloves and salt - and, after grinding them carefully, rubbed the seasoning into the meat."

The man in the mist did as such, and soon the meat was cooking, popping, with little tings of the drum in time with the crackle of the fire. Yugito couldn't believe she was actually getting hungry from words alone - it was impressive, of a storyteller.

"The second man tried to stay strong against the urge to eat the meat, but the smell - the heavenly, beautiful aroma - of the meat made staying strong difficult. He grit his teeth against the urge to take a huge bite of the meat, desperate not to cave to his desires. -" (The second man was uncomfortable, turning away from the fire - but his arm was caught by the first man. I knew where this was going.) "- His friend saw his suffering, his struggle, and grinned at it. He cajoled his friend with words, enticing him. 'What harm could a single bite do?' He asked. 'It is only a piece of meat. It will be eaten anyway.' He reasoned.'

"But still the second man held true - that is, until the first man began to eat himself." - the first man cut a juicy piece of venison - "And then, the second man began to cave. Yet still, he did not reach for the meat, though his hand twitched and his mouth salivated. He would not serve himself the meat."

The drumming stopped.

"Though, he objected not when his friend served him, instead."

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

Absently, I realize that Ino was talking. But I'm distracted by the hole in my chest.

"- I know what happened, Shikamaru. I got it from Naruto who got it from Sasuke who dragged it out of Kakashi. I get it - but seriously?"

I look up at her - locking onto her pupiled eyes.

"Shikamaru -" Ino breaks herself off, finding her words. "Maybe her past was a lie, okay? Noa, or Hisoka, or Tsubasa, or whoever she really is - It. Doesn't. Matter . Because you two playing shogi tournaments till Yoshino-ba-san dragged you in for dinner? Her teaching you English in exchange for vocab? The six years you two had together - being together? That was real. Can you doubt all of that just because she changed her name to get out of an abusive household ? Can you really give up on her because she had to lie to survive? Will you really hold it against her that she fought back against the family that was planning on murdering her?"

The tears are shedding. Ino crouches next to me, an arm around my shoulder, bringing my head to rest in the crook of her neck. "Shika," She murmurs comfortingly. "It hurts. I know - but she had to to the best she could. I know mindscapes, Shika. Me looking like this, right now? You're doubting everyone right now, right? Because if Noa wasn't who she said she was, then who is?"

I choke on my sobs. Ino pulls me closer.

"Tsubasa Noa - who is the orphan Noa, and demon Hisoka, and the baby Tsubasa Hisoka - loves you . Sure, you two fooled the village, laying false trails left and right like the damn Shinobi you are - the Nara you are - but you can't fool me. I know you, Shikamaru. You can't lie to me. Not out there, not in here. But, yes. Right now, she's gone."

I wait for the 'but,' but it never comes. I draw myself up - hand clutching my chest still, yes, but far better … if not emotionally drained. "So?" I dare to ask, "She's been labeled as a missing-nin, Ino. My … Noa is an A-Ranked threat for her murder of the rest of her clan. She's being scapegoated for what Danzo -"

"That is exactly my point , Shika!" Ino cuts me off, fire in her eyes. " Danzo , Shika. The longer you let yourself rot the more control Danzo has. Team 7, Team 8, and half the Clan Heads are already plotting to take the bastard down."

I jolt, surprised that I missed something so huge, but-

I was going around in a daze.

"But they need a strategist, Shika." Ino coaxes, voice soft. "They need you."

My fingers close around the fabric of my shirt, the fabric bunching and tearing under my hand. I take a deep breath. Hold it. Let it out.

When I look up into Ino's pupil-less eyes, I feel a newfound determination.

Absently, I remember a saying I heard somewhere. About the Clans of Konoha.

'Any Konoha nin could tell you that there are three things to fear. A focused Inuzuka, an angry Aburame, and a motivated Nara.'

Danzo won't even see it coming.

* * *

 **KILLER BEE**

*Damn, why's it gotta be that the most interesting women there are are too young for me?*

All the same, regardless of how mysterious this silver haired angel is, it's her stories we're after. That girl, cuz she ain't much older than Karui, sure knew how to play up a crowd - natural performer, I'd say. *Just like me! - the one and the only Killer Bee!*

*And some stories they are; even with the laughter - I ain't expecting no happily ever after.*

The mist-made-men each have a slice of meat in front of them by the time I tear my eyes away from the pretty girl - Okurimono, gift - and, despite not caring for either character, the girl's narrative makes you want to know the ending.

*Interesting fella. To think a girl with this kinda talent was floating around - no wonder she's such a best sell-ah!*

"The second man watched as his friend tore into the venison, and his stomach growled with jealousy. He looked down at his own plate, and somehow the thought of disregarding his own limits - ignoring the heavens, his heart - didn't seem so terrible anymore."

The music resumed with an ominous roll.

"After all, what could one bite hurt?"

*Man, even a shinobi knows you're limits are there for a reason - To dismiss them entirely: might as well just commit treason!*

The music became something rapid, something anticipatory. *With a beat like the one this girl be tapping - this being a job is the only thing keeping me from rapping!*

"And soon the both of them were eating, the taste amazing - the juices rich with garlic and the smell sharp with cloves. One bite became two. Two became three. Three to four to five to six to a dozen, to twenty, until soon the entire animal was gone - eaten evenly between them."

The kids, the audience, seemed to groan at the men's stupidity - leaning forward with morbid fascination and curiosity. Bee felt the same, in a way. *Not that I believe it, but with nothing to do … what really happens when you break a taboo?*

"That night, the two men went to bed with no regrets. After all, the first man made his friend happy and shared a full meal; while the second man broke his taboo, suffered not for it, and enjoyed the forbidden with only a pleasantly fully stomach to show for it."

The two men retired for bed within their tent, the clearing shrinking as the story drew to a close; the sun dropping within the mist.

"While the men slept, however, the second man began to change.-" The tent is lit up in profile by the campfire, flickering. "First his hair began to shorten and spread, till he had a pelt covering every inch of his skin. Then his toes began to fuse - his fingers too. His hands hardened, and his spine shortened. He slept through it all - having fallen straight to sleep after his filling meal. By the time morning came and he woke he was a full grown buck with wide, pronged antlers and beady eyes."

A magnificent stag, with eyes the same color as the second man's coat, bounded out of the tent - only to be immediately grabbed by the neck by the first man. With a roll of the drum, and a flash of the campfire light, the buck was hefted into the air.

"His friend, unknowingly, drew a knife and slit his throat - thinking only of another savory meal."

I watched as the campfire flashed like a bolt of lightning before dying into a simple pile of embers -

Before a sharp tear through my chest and distracts me from the rest of the story -

And then the screaming starts.


	9. STEP BY STEP BY STEP

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

*Bracketing Asterisk Around Italicised Text* - Thoughts in verse. Specifically, raps.

* * *

Dear all, you deserve better.

And I have taken so very long to deliver. Sorry. I can't promise it won't happen again...

But I'm trying.

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAKU**

"This isn't going to work."

The first words out of my son's mouth to me in nearly a week and it's that. Ah, family love.

Shikamaru ignores the glares sent his way with a practiced air that speaks of many years not giving a damn about what other people think. Part of me is proud, but most of me is focused on how intently his eyes are locked on the map in front of him.

"This isn't going to work," He repeats absentmindedly, to the displeasure of the room.

"Are you just going to repeat that all day?" Kiba demands with a Tsume-like growl, "Or do you want to provide something useful to the discussion?"

So alike, yet so different. Tsume knows better than to interrupt a thinking Nara with the expectation of speed or heightened success rates. She learned that the hard way during the Third War.

Shikamaru ignores Kiba, and the rest of the room, for another six minutes and 45 seconds - his hands leaving the edge of the table around minute two to form his familiar thinking gesture, and his eyes closing at minute six - before looking up at the shinobi gathered and waiting with varied levels of patience.

"This plan is hinging on the presumption that we do not have enough information on Danzo and ROOT to properly undermine him: that isn't true."

Inoichi sit forward abruptly, "How do you mean?"

Shikamaru grinned wickedly, the familiarity of the gesture giving me hope, "Well I recently noticed this tail of mine…."

* * *

 **NII YUGITO**

I'm shocked into consciousness with a wet cough and a sharp pain in my side, before hands I don't recognize are on my side -

"Easy!" A foreign, accented voice soothes. "They're gone. Bee's right next to you. I'm a healer."

I want to object, insist that she - whoever she is - doesn't need to waste her chakra on a jinchuriki that will just heal on her own soon … but the ministrations are oddly soothing. And if I could use the excuse of a healer to feel maybe a little more human, I wasn't going to push that away. Yet.

Cracking my eyes open, I immediately see that Bee prone right next to me; obviously, he had been treated before me and we had been lined up so whoever woke first would have a full view of the other. Common treatment techniques for injured veteran shinobi, but not a civilian practice. Who was this woman?

I turn my head to the other side - my left - and catch sight of long, silver hair just a tad too bright to fit in with the Land Of Lightning natives. It takes one second, two, for me to realize -

" Okurimono ?"

The question tumbles out of my mouth before I can stop it, and when she just smiles at me in return …

The mysterious storyteller has taken off her bandages, leaving a breathtaking face. Her cheekbones are sharp, her nose narrow and defined, and her eyes so wide and expressive … it's an almost ethereal effect. She looks more like a goddess come down to earth, with her hair falling into a halo around her.

And her eyes - looking at them makes my heart catch a little. Her eyes are bright red - fresh blood red - but beautiful all the same. She's a demon come from hell. She's a spirit trapped on Earth. She's -

Impossible to describe, ageless in her otherworldliness.

Maybe the blood loss is just getting to me. Or I'm just entirely too gay for this.

Okurimono - storyteller, healer, spirit - is smiling as she's knitting my flesh back together.

"Yes," She affirms, smile tugging at her lips. "That's me. Bee was up an hour ago, but he drifted off again. You will both be fine."

Good. Good. That's good.

With a grimace, I push myself up on my forearms - ignoring Okurimono's admonishing look - and have to suck in a breath at the bolt of pain racing up my side. My apparent medic only sighs, but - clearly knowing she wasn't going to keep me down for long - only reaches out and supports my back as I reach a sitting position.

All around me - us - is chaos. We haven't left the hamlet, it has just crumpled and burned around us. The last vestiges of blue flames flicker out around the foundation of what was once the inn. The hitching posts and carts are crushed and splintered, their carcasses desolate.

And the corpses. The clearing left by the hamlet is full of corpses.

This unnamed settlement - this outpost - had 20, maybe 25 people living here. To come and see Okurimono's show, another 30 traveled to see.

With the instincts only year and year and years of training could give me, I counted the bodies with one fell sweep of my gaze. 61 bodies littered the ground. 61 bodies of children and farmers and families and travelers. And those were only the ones large enough to count.

My breath catches in my throat, and I don't even object as Okurimono lays an arm across my shoulders and pushes me back to the ground - tearing my eyes away from the visage of a dead child gripping a ragdoll and forcing me to instead look at the unforgiving night sky.

I give into the darkness.

* * *

 **UCHIHA SASUKE**

"I don't like this."

I snort, glancing at the Dobe. Trust Uzumaki Naruto to cut to the crux of the matter.

The room full of shinobi and clan heads on the other hand…

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Shikamaru demands harshly, on edge and exhausted after spending hours and hours planning with the shinobi collective on how to capture this 'Sai' and get information out of him.

"Down, boy," I drawl on reflex, Noa's old automatic response to when tensions would rise too high. I almost regret it when the Nara heir flinches, but I push on through - it shut him up after all. "That isn't what he meant and you know it. Let him rub a couple brain cells together - it'll take a sec."

Ino snort, and I think the Hyuuga Clan Head is hiding a smirk, so I count my snark as a win while Naruto gets his thoughts together.

"The Akatsuki are targeting Jinchuuriki," My teammate parces out, words deliberate and slow as he attempts to vocalize the instincts he relies on so heavily. "Three weeks ago the Kazekage was attacked and nearly killed for his bijuu. Shukaku would've been removed and used for kami-knows-what and Gaara would be dead if not for a modification that Gaara and I made to his seal years ago to reduce the strain the seal had on both of them. Akatsuki were counting on a different type of seal, and couldn't extract Shukaku before Konoha's aid arrived. It was a fluke, but also a tell - evidence that even though the now-dead Akasuna no Sasori and Iwa no Deidara were in the know about aspects of village security and details in Suna, but not enough to intimately know about the aspects of Gaara's seal."

Naruto scans the room, taking in the gathered shinobi. He locks eyes with me, a silent prompt.

"You think that because Akatsuki attacked with such a poorly formed plan, that they're getting desperate."

It isn't a question, but Naruto nods anyway: "That's the thing. Why not wait? Why not get more information? Why now? Why not years ago? Why not Konoha or Kumo or Taki? Renyard, the Fox, has told me he's lost contact with 4 and 5 from Iwa, and 7 from Taki. It makes no sense."

Shikamaru seems to have caught on, his eyes glazed as he looks at the map of the Elemental Nations in front of him. "Something is pushing them. A deadline that's making them reckless. Something that is making them make last bids that may or may not go well, but need to be attempted anyway. They're desperate."

"What are you getting at?" Kiba asks Naruto, worrying Akamaru's ears. "That Akatsuki should be our priority?"

"Hn," I grunt, drawing the attention of the room. "If they're desperate then they'll get sloppy, but if they get sloppy then it's easier for Danzo to step up and utilize the power vacuum."

A moment of silence.

"So we need to speed up the timetable," Shikamaru concludes, eyes dancing frantically over the map. "Naruto, keep us updated on whether any further bijuu are taken. Ino, we need to get Sai - tonight . Naruto, stick around incase we need to break any of those damn seals Danzo is known for. Once we get him, Inoichi-ji-san we're going to need to get him to talk and fast ."

He looks up at the room, face grim. "Now scatter," He orders tiredly. "We've all been missing for too long."

* * *

 **OKURIMONO**

Once Bee and Yugito drop back under and stay under, conditions stable, I let myself breathe. And then I slap some seals on them to keep them under.

And I turn my attention to the two forms strategically placed out of view of the two Kumo shinobi, both bound and contained within the barrier of silence I had erected around them.

'Thank you Ruto, for the custom made tags .'

I stand, brushing off my filthy kimono, and walk towards the two members of the Akatsuki I had captured.

* * *

 **A/N: As of the publishing of this chapter, all chapters of The Road to the End have been rewritten and reposted.**


	10. THE FIRST CONTACT

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **OKURIMONO**

I wake Itachi first.

He, of course, immediately starts to freak out.

I suppose it's reasonable, after all I'm not stupid and didn't exactly let him be _free_. I cut all his non-vital chakra flow, used seals and jutsu to effectively paralyze him, and have pretty effectively rerouted the chakra system around his eyes to make activating the sharingan impossible for him. Unless he suddenly whips out Tsunade level chakra control and manages to circumvent _all of that_ , he's not going to be any real threat to me.

(But that doesn't mean I'm not taking him seriously, far from it. It would suck to die at Itachi's hand, honestly. Really suck.)

But I also cured his lung problem with some creative transplants from the dead bodies in the hamlet they destroyed, so I'm going to call us even.

"Who are you?" Itachi asks, suspicious and clearly on the edge of flipping the fuck out. Yay, Uchiha anger issues - I wasn't around all of Sasuke's pubescent mood swings, but _oh boy_ I heard _horror stories_.

On the bright side, I'm immediately relieved as well because that he asked at all means that he doesn't know and doesn't have a guess. Therefore logic says that my disguise worked well enough to fool an _Uchiha_ (sans Sharingan but whatever). It buys me time.

"Someone who wants answers," I respond, voice thick with the accent of my words.

He narrowed his eyes at me, cataloging my speech and comparing it, no doubt, to … well, myself. To Noa.

But most people recognize people either immediately or not at all unless someone points it out. Disguise making 101. Assumptions and connections made at a first meeting stay for a very long time. This first impression would be crucial to establish myself as a member of 'Noa's Nomad Tribe' rather than 'Noa with silver hair.' That was my best bet.

"About?" He humored me, obviously holding his cards close.

"Let's start with the question of your loyalty and move on from there, shall we?" I smile at him, all teeth and ice.

"No, I don't think we will," He counters easily in his deadened voice. "I will not speak."

"Well you've already failed that, Tachi-chan," I giggle, flipping my hair over my shoulder. "You're talking right now."

"And so are you," He states. "Do you even realize how much you have given away already?"

"Oh?" I laugh, skillfully hiding my nerves. "Like what?"

"Like that you are of the Tsubasa Nomad Tribe."

I snort delicately, hiding both my immense relief and my more … brash characteristics. "Nomad? Yes, I am among the last. We number almost as few as the Uchiha these days. Tsubasa? Only one of us has that blood."

"You speak of Noa of Konoha," Itachi voices. "Odd of you to speak of her so freely. She believed herself to be the last of your tribe."

I smile at him demurely, lips turned up. "Oh? And you would know that how?"

"I see I am misinformed," He acquiesced, ever the gentleman-murderer. "But you are not of Konoha."

"Of course not," I 'assure' him, flipping my hand dismissively. "No village holds my obedience."

"Then where does your loyalty lie …?" He trails off, obviously looking both for a name and an answer.

"Call me Okurimono - just Okurimono," I tell him. "My people have no need for clan names."

"Okurimono," He echoes. "That sounds rather Common for your people, does it not?"

"If you want to banty with your words, sure," I poke at him with faux playfulness. "You'd be unable to pronounce the name my mother gave me."

Ahh bullshit. My favorite. Now what to say when ...

"Try me?"

Ahh Uchiha arrogance. Let's see, how can I throw him off further …

"Chrysanthemum," I tell him on a whim, immensely satisfied when I see his eyes widen - clearly not expecting that.

"Okurimono, then." He concedes reluctantly; another loss for him. "And you are an ally of Konoha, then? Or perhaps of Kumo?" His eyes flicker to the unconscious Cloud nin before him.

"Good guess, little boy." I condescend him. "But no. I am an ally of Noa. Konoha only is under my protection circumstantially, and Kumo only gets protection only so far against the enemies of my dear little cousin. Akatsuki aims to kill Noa's family, therefore Noa's family will kill Akatsuki."

"And what do you plan to do with us?" He asks, eyes flickering to assess me and my proximity to Kisame. "You could've killed us. Why did you not?"

"Because I do not kill those who I can use, it's a waste of chakra."

"You think you can use Kisame? Use me?" He sounds almost-offended. In a rather Vulcan way. "I am the target of revenge for your cousins teammate - would it not be a … conflict of interest?"

"Conflict of interest?" I laugh, allowing the sound only to escape as trill of a bell. "Oh, poor Uchiha. To be so tied by words. What you mean to say is: 'Would it not be best to hitch me up by the Akatsuki's god-awful robes and let my little brother use me as a punching bag?'" - he flinches - "Oh no. See, when my sweet little cousin was first getting to know me there were quite a few secrets she stumbled across that she couldn't tell anyone else, lest a certain _Warhawk_ target them -" Itachi's eyes (less intimidating sans-Sharingan) narrow at my allusion "- so I became someone the little one confided in. So I _know_."

His breath would catch at my tone if he were any less prestigious of a shinobi.

"I know that you killed your clan for Konoha, and I know that you did it under _orders_." I hiss out lowly, leaning in to catch his gaze unforgivingly. "And I know that you tried - _idiotically_ \- to use your little brother as a tool for your own suicide. To make him ' _stronger_ ' by _destroying him_."

"You don't understand."

I sit back, pulling away from the pathetically damaged man in front of me. "Oh?" I ask, barely able from launching into yet another round of tearing into him. Habit of mine, but you know how it is: old dog, new tricks. At this point I was 36 in term of years experienced. Positively ancient.

"You don't _understand_ ," He repeats, voice growing a little desperate. "I had to. It was the Clan or the Village. The civil war a coup would have sparked would have killed hundreds. The village would be weakened and targeted by the other nations. Konoha would've been destroyed within years. I had no _choice_."

" I think the ninja doth protest too much , " I paraphrase Shakespeare at him snarkily. "I don't believe a word you're saying, and neither do you."

" _I had no choice,_ " He insists again, stubborn in his damaged ways. "It was the village or it was my clan. I had no -"

"Oh don't give me that," I cut him off, sick of hearing the disgusting filth he was spewing. "You're on a loop: _'I had no choice'_ , over and _over_. There's always another way. There are never two paths - never only two choices. You could've said no. You could've talked to the Hokage _directly_ to confirm orders you doubted. You could've killed Danzo, taken on ROOT or turned to your ANBU team for help. There are protocols for internal corruption and dubious orders that date back _far_ before the massacre - I _know_ , my little cousin _told_ me - and you used _none_ of them."

I crouch back down in front of him, a kunai in hand and hold the point beneath his chin, forcing the Slayer of the Uchiha to look me in the eye. A move once fatally dangerous now rendered into a mocking show of his weakness. "You tried to force your _little brother_ to kill you since you couldn't do it yourself. And you did so by nearly driving him mad and quite effectively scarring him beyond repair. What do you _think_ the truth behind your actions would've _done to him_ after he put his fist through your _heart_?"

I can see the cracks I'm forming. Can see where the true, broken Itachi is bleeding through the facade of the Slayer of the Uchiha.

"Kill me, then."

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

"Kakashi takes lead on this," Tsunade orders, turning away from where Jiraiya and Naruto are brainstorming a faster and less damaging removal of Danzo's fucking tongue seal. "According to Sai, you have twenty four hours before his disappearance will come under the greatest degree of suspicion. Don't use all of them."

"Hai, Hokage-sama," The room echoes, watching as she exits.

The dog summoner is grim: "Let's do this."

Rapidly a plan forms. A team. Hatake Kakashi leads with Shikamaru himself as his second. Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Yamanaka Ino, Mitarashi Anko, Shiranui Genma, and Inuzuka Kiba and Akamaru. Small team against an army, but all skilled and trustworthy - and all read in. They all scatter, putting affairs in order and gathering supplies enough for war, from armor to poisons to soldier pills.

Shikamaru hoped he wasn't the only one who made sure it was easy to find his will. He also hoped he was overthinking things.

Danzo was located easily. It was illogical to have a completely sporadic schedule when you have a secret army at your beck and call, so instead he had a rotation so complex and convoluted you had to be a member of ROOT to interpret and apply the system.

Luckily they had Sai, and even with his chakra burned tongue he still managed to describe the route.

It was what Noa had once called witching hour when they struck, the time when the air is still and the night is at the peak of darkness.

Danzo was on a seldom treaded path when they attacked.

Genma lead with a barrage of senbon laced with his most potent stuff, not only hitting Danzo square in his chest and throat but also nailing his two guards. The guards drop dead immediately - Danzo does not. That set off all kinds of alarms in the squad's heads.

But they don't let it stop them. Kiba immediately - even before the senbon land - is going in for a devastating Fang over Fang with Akamaru as Anko sends in her snakes as support, the attack drilling through the air and driving Danzo into her summons' waiting jaws.

The venom affects him, then suddenly doesn't. Sign number two.

Danzo sets off a complicated chakra pattern between beats before they can stop him, and suddenly the clearing is flooded as ROOT agents fall in from the woodwork and shadows. Kiba and Naruto peel off to deal with the horde, tearing down the veritable army with attack after attack and clone after clone.

But they just keep coming. I see my chance through the underbrush, however, and extend my shadow to lock Danzo in place just as Sasuke and Kakashi prime a palm of lightning each to shove into the corrupt elder's chest.

They both land. Danzo is _still standing_.

I'm about to shout - to say that _something is wrong_ when -

Someone is in my _HEAD_!

* * *

 **OKURIMONO**

It's my turn to be shocked.  
"No."

" _Kill me_ ," He practically begs, eyes shining with grief. "I have committed more crimes than can ever be forgiven. I've killed more than can ever be repaid. _Kill me_."

Shit, I had pushed him too far.

"I don't have the right to decide that," I hissed, bringing back my hand and pocket my kunai. "And if I kill you, you will become useless to me. There will be no benefit to your death - no repentance."

"Then take my eyes."

" _What_ ?"

I can't believe what I'm hearing. An Uchiha guards his eyes to the death and beyond -

"Yes we do," He confirms, and I realize I've spoken aloud in my shock. "But I am doing far more damage than good - you're right, and I've known that for years. But please my … me being here this long has to mean _something_ ."

"You don't know me," I breathe out, disbelieving. "You don't even _know me_."

"But you have proven that you would be far more responsible than I could ever be. Have ever been."

"I -"

" _Please_ -!"

I don't know what about that one word finally convinces me. I honestly couldn't tell you. But I reach for him, a single hand (one that would've been trembling had I any less control of my body) and I …

The power of the Sharingan comes from the optic nerve evolved in every Uchiha, the retina adapted to process the increase of information with greater detail, and the iris pigmentation and pupil configuration that serves no greater purpose (other then look intimidating as all hell) than to increase pupil 'surface area' - it's exposure to visual input. How big the hole receiving data is, really. The coloring and shape is a genetic quirk, and is no more effective or expensive than a simple pupil's contracting and expanding habits. Just … more Uchiha.

I remove his eye. Seperate the retina and optic nerve, and with a deft exchange I've my eye out too, pain dulled by chakra and lid closed to protect my gaping socket. I do the transplant on autopilot; first effectively switching the backs of each eye and then placing my synthetically familiar-yet-foreign blood red eye back into my socket.

It takes less than a minute.

I blink. Channel chakra to my eye and suddenly I can see -

And I see Itachi run a pilfered kunair through is empty socket, immediately destroying brain function far beyond what I have the chakra to repair.

I swallow as he collapses back; mourning in a detached, abstract way. I incline my head. I had no love for Itachi but only because of the choices he made. The circumstances that shaped him were … unfair. To call a decapitation a paper cut.

I'm reaching for his second eye when Kisame wakes up.


	11. THE TRUTH THAT WE DON'T WISH TO SEE

Underlined - English

 _'Italicised' - Thoughts_

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

 _*Bracketing Asterisk Around Italicised Text* - Thoughts in verse. Specifically, raps._

* * *

 **HATAKE KAKASHI**

When Shikamaru - who has held a dozen nin fighting and struggling for an hour while backup arrived - drops the Shadow Jutsu mere seconds in, I know that something went wrong. When he emerges with a kunai launched straight at Anko's back - luckily not landing before Genma knocked it out of the air with a well placed senbon - I flash hand signs for Ino to fix whatever was happening and fucking _quick_.

 _'Fu and Torune and -'_

But the thought is cut off by Anko crying out as what honest to god looks like a bolt of pure chakra hits her square in the chest and she drops like a stone.

' Shit-!'

And as if summoning him with a thought, a wave of kikaichu swarm them. Calling the swarm a sizeable and destructive hive would be an understatement, and Sasuke begins to spit fire as Kiba - resident Aburame expert what with Shino on his team (and possibly in his pants) - begins to almost literally bark out orders to the team of where to hit and how.

Genma pulls out his tanto and begins to fight Danzo side by side with Naruto's original and Kakashi himself.

"And _what_ do you think you're doing?" Danzo hisses out in a shorter than brief lull in the fighting, _yet again_ not dying from a _lethal blow_.

Kakashi decides not to answer him, instead wasting the time to push up his headband and using his Mangekyo to tear into Danzo's torso - eating into his side, shoulder, and a fair amount of his left arm.

The move quiets the battlefield for a single, deafening moment.

Then Danzo - a war hero and _incredibly powerful shinobi_ \- bellows with unrestrained rage .

And if they thought that Danzo was angry before, he was _furious_ now. _Livid_.

The Shiamura screams of wordless ferality grates on Kakshi's senses, nearly throwing him off just as the Warhawk, tearing at the bandages around his eye with his good arm, lunges at him with something unreadable and dark in his gaze.

Kakashi follows the movement reflexively, eyes locked on Danzo as a mess of red and black _burns into his mind -_

He can't fully comprehend what's happening, but he knows something is _wrong_ when -

Nothing makes sense. The world is upside down and _strange_ and -

Suddenly Danzo's on fire and he can feel his feet coming out from under him.

The world burns _red_ before black claims the Last Hatake.

* * *

 **OKURIMONO**

When Kisame saw Itachi's dead body he immediately flew into the kind of murderous rage reserved for the death of a friend, of family, of an irreplaceable comrade. His overwhelming chakra, returned with time and spiking dangerously with rage, rips through seals with brute force, injuring irreparable internally but allowing him to move .

It's only the implementation of my new eye and the damage dealt to the Tailless Tailed Beast that saves me from a killing blow. I dodge - barely - and thank whatever stars I had left that I had the foresight to seal away all the weapons the two missing-nin had on them before I began to interrogate Itachi. If he had Samehada …

I wouldn't be alive long enough to regret not sealing it.

I lunge back, Itachi's altered eye still clutched in a fist ready to engage the Kiri nin again -

When a tentacle reaches out and snaps Kisame's neck before he can even recognize that it's there.

Shifting my focus abruptly, I'm face to face with Killer Bee … but it's not. This Bee is strange, an energy coming off of him that reminds me of -

" _Gyuki_ -" I breath in disbelief.

And if I hadn't had his full attention before: I did now .

What do I do? What do I _do_? _What else is there to do?_

So I curtsey.

 _What the fuck brain._

* * *

 **UCHIHA SASUKE**

The moment I can see the Mangekyo Sharingan - that Danzo somehow has - locked onto Kakashi's wide, startled gaze I've pumped enough chakra into Amaterasu to burn the entirety of the disgusting man into nothing more than dust.

The drain is immediate, but I push the exhaustion aside long enough to lunge for Kakashi as his eyes roll back into his head, collapsing to the ground in a boneless heap.

" _INO_!" I scream, desperately hoping that the blonde has already fixed whatever the hell was going wrong with Shikamaru's head. "We need you!"

She's over in a flash, the displaced air filled with leaves of her Sushin.

"What happened?" She demanded, hands glowing with chakra.

"Mangekyo - Danzo had one," He answered britally, scanning what's left of the team.

Genma was clutching his side, holding pressure on a glancing blow from a ROOT agent as he single handedly slapped paralysis seal courtesy of Naruto on all the bodies on the ground, dead or alive or whatever the freaky in between would be.

Akamaru and Kiba both seemed unharmed for the most part, barring scrapes and exhaustion, and they leaned over Shikamaru as they fed the Nara heir sips of water as he began to come around. Naruto was sending clones to gather the paralysed figures as his main checked over Anko, frowning at the seal on her neck.

' _Take charge,_ ' a voice that sounded suspiciously like Noa nudged him, a laugh in her tone.

"Genma, take Shikamaru and go - get yourself checked out and have another Yamanaka check him just in case. Naruto, take Anko and make sure she doesn't die. Send your clones to drop the lot of ROOT in T&I and more to clean up the area. We were never here. Akamaru, Kiba. Find the bases in Konoha, pronto, and report back to only one of the team or the Hokage directly."

I turn back to Ino, watching as her eyes close as she runs her jutsu. "Is he safe to move?"

"Yes, but not right now." She answers absentmindedly. "It was a genjutsu, a strong one. Probaby to try and plant something in his subconscious. The backlash of it never completing with Danzo's death sent a shock through his system strong enough to knock him down for the count. Give me a moment to stabilize him …"

Agonizing seconds.

She looks up. We _move_.

* * *

 **OKURIMONO**

 **"How do you know that name?"** The Eight Tails demands in a bellow, impatient and dangerous. **"Who are you, girl?"**

 _'Don't bristle at the condescending sexist bijuu. He could kill you and he's old. Like … Hinata's dad. Don't flip, he's good under all of that.'_

"They call me Okurimono now," I tell him, hesitant to lie. "I know the name of the Bijuu only through word of mouth and rumor, passed down as stories among my people. I knew not the validity, and I hope not to have offended."

 **"Hmph,"** The Eight-Tails harrumphs. **"Do not use it: you are not worthy."**

Shit . I curtsey again - lower . "Forgive me, Hachibi-sama, for I did not mean to offend. But might I impede on your time and attention further? I have news you will find essential."

The three tails manifested whip back and forth with interest, and I find myself holding my breath as he considers my words. **"You have healed Bee. I will hear your words."**

I summarize as quickly, concisely, and accurately everything I knew about Akatasuki, Tobi, the Zetsu, and Kaguya as clearly as I could. The great Ox-tapus seemed … _angry_. I couldn't tell if that was good or bad.

 **"And how I am to know the validity of your words?"** Gyuki snaps, not really angry at me but peeved with the situation.

"I have no way to benefit from the increased wariness and vigilance of the Jinchuuriki and Bijuu of Kumo, nor those of other nations," I reason softly, head bowed.

 **"And what,"** The Eight-Tails considers. **"Do you expect me to do?"**

"Not get captured," I answer automatically, but then I compose myself and my answer a bit more. "To warn Killer Bee. Get him to spread the message, to Nii Yugito and Gaara of the Sand. Talk to your siblings if you can. I suspect that your siblings of three, four, five, and seven have been overtaken. I suspect that if six has not been assaulted yet, they are near to being. None of us would want the consequences of the Rabbit Goddess' awakening; please take the care needed to prevent that and preserve yourself."

 **"Very well,"** He acquiesced, rolling his shoulders and flexing his tails in a way wholing unfamiliar on Bee's face and in the fluidity of his body. **"Till next time, Okurimono no Chishiki."**

' _Gift of knowledge,_ ' I think. _'I can work with that._ '

I lean down and swiftly remove Itachi's second eye, hesitant to linger, and speed off into the creeping dawn.

* * *

 **UZUMAKI-NAMIKAZE NARUTO**

I slump back against the tall Harishima tree, feeling the bark press into my back with an aching familiarity. It isn't long at all until another presence joins me.

" Scarecrow's going to be out for a while ," Sasuke informs me, weariness creeping into his tone. " But Ino and her father both ran through his head with a fine tooth comb: there's nothing there that shouldn't be. "

" Other than copious amounts of porn ," I joke, laughter only a touch forced.

We settle into silence, shoulders pressed against each other as the sun begins to rise.

" Do you think she's… " I start, then stop. Unsure where to go.

" I dunno, " Sasuke supplies, lips twitching grimmly. " But there is one thing I do know ."

My teammate turns to face me, and my breath almost catches on the way that his features glow in the morning light, dawn creeping across his features like molten gold.

" She loved - loves \- us, " He says with the calm surety of someone commenting on the color of the sky. " And she never did anything to hurt us. "

" Except for lie ."

It's not bitter, exactly - my tone. More … resigned. She lied.

" She always knew more than she should've ," Sasuke reasoned. " Do you think that you or I or anyone really would've been better off knowing? "

I can only shake my head. No, we wouldn't have been.

"Danzo had Red Eyes ," I change the subject abruptly. " How \- "

" I got debriefed, " He sighed heavily, and I regret bringing it up. " I think part of me knew - not that the Warhawk had one … but that it wasn't only under orders. The Massacre, I mean. "

" Yeah ," I breathe out, shifting to better feel the raven's warm, solid strength. " I know what you mean. "

" Do you … " He stops, searching for words. " When she comes back, will you be able to forgive her? "

" When the Weasel comes back will you be able to forgive him? "

He frowns at me, " That's not the same. "

" Isn't it? " I ask. " Two siblings of ours, both only ever following orders but keeping secret from us all the same. Both having killed what was left of their family. Both missing ninja of the village. "

" You don't really believe that, " He protests, and I'm shaking my head before he even finishes the sentence.

" No, I don't, " I admit. " But the parallels are there and you can't deny them ."

" I don't care about parallels, " He almost-growls. " He killed, she killed - it doesn't matter. She tried and he never did. "

" And when Itachi comes back ?" I ask him, searching his face. " What will you do then ?"

" Mourn what could've been, " He replies immediately. " But never mourn him ."

"Okay," I relent, switching back to Common. "Okay."

* * *

 **OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI**

Time passes slowly and quickly,

As I traveled, throwing caution to the wind as I raced through the rest of The Land of Lightning, I tested my limits. I had no way of knowing how I compared to a proper Uchiha, but spending time with Sasuke and Kakashi lead to a level of familiarity with the functions of the Sharingan that Kakashi himself didn't have when he got his transplant. I spent the dash for the border it wasting bits and pieces of my precious chakra to familiarize myself the best I could with the Sharingan implanted behind my red irises. It would no me no good to get into a fight with a tool I didn't know how to use.

I had also checked my reflection in a mirror I had constructed. My eyes didn't change when the sharingan was activated, an advantage that would no doubt save my life. I needed every one I could get.

I was beginning to feel very much like a Mary Sue at this point.

In no time at all, I arrived at the edge of Sound, having dodged border patrol and sentries alike until I place myself directly outside of the compound of a village's gates.

"I've something of interest for Orochimaru of the Sannin," I announce to the Oto air, sporting a full fledged Kumo accent I picked up while I was in Lightning. "Tell him the killer of Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame is willing to make a trade."

And with a flurry of motion, I'm surrounded on all sides and locking gazes with Kabuto - one of the most dangerous men in the Nations - as he laughs hideously at me.

"Is that _so_?"

* * *

The room is concrete. Designed as an arena of some sort, I'd bet. It's large, as large as the space I had my chunin exams - I'm thankful we aren't in some tiny room. I can't be destructive if I'm worried the walls will come down on me.

Orochimaru was summoned promptly, leaving Kabuto as guards and a handful of Oto nin dotting the wall.

"And you are?" The snake of a man hisses once we've all settled in a pseudo mexican standoff. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting."

 _'Sweet. Disguise fools a Sannin.'_

"The people of Kumo call me Okurimono no Chishiki," I answer cryptically. "But I am not here about myself, Snake Sannin. I am here about a trade."

"Ah yes," He hisses, his sickly yellow eyes locked on mine. "You claim to have killed not one but two of the Akatsuki. That is very impressive for a no name kunoichi like you, don't you think?"

"You find me a liar," I allow, shrugging delicately. "I would do the same in your place. Would you care to verify the authenticity of _this_ then?"

I pull out a storage seal (Ruto wasn't the only one who could do fuinjutsu) and with a poof of displaced air and chakra dust Samehada is in my hand, mewling with the loss of it's master. I pump a thimbleful of chakra into it in a half assed placation.

" _Indeed_ , " Orochimaru hisses, and holds a hand out in an obvious demand to hold it.

I carelessly flip it towards him and pretend that I don't flinch when he catches it greedily.

"So there might be some validity to your words after all, Okurimono- _chan_ ," He practically purrs, eyes locked on the sword and overall forcing me to hold back a shudder. "But we both know I've a legendary sword of my own. This -" He chucked it to the side, lodging it hilt deep in a wall and nearly clipping one of his subordinates. "- doesn't interest me."

I reach carefully - mindful of the ever present danger in the room - into my pouch and remove a single glass jar: Itachi's black eyes floating in the preserving fluid within.

"I hope you don't mind I'm not willing to throw these around, Orochimaru- _sama_ ," I challenge, just on the edge of mocking.

He only nods, eyes locked firmly on my movements and he beckens for Kabuto to move forward.

Kabuto approached slowly, eyes studying my body language just as much as the eyes in the jar. I keep everything about me wary but firm, not aggressive but perhaps merely greedy. Exactly what would be expected in a weaker kunoichi in the face of a Sannin.

I wait. Hold back my bloodlust as he leans down to examine the jar, they eyes. The structure of the nerve, the lack of damage. His guard is up the entire time and I force myself to _wait_.

After a number of agonizing minutes - with Kabuto going so far as to place a finger on the jar to run a cursory scan - the grey haired man settles back, satisfied with their authenticity. And then for a _fraction_ of a _second_ , his guard is down.

I wait a moment. Just a second more.

I drop the jar carelessly and as his gaze follows the descent I reach out with a hand coated with chakra -

And _fry_ his nervous system and chakra system in one devastating blow.

Not even _Tsunade_ could recover from that.

Before anyone in the room can fully process what had happened, I activate one of the many seals on my person and a barrier sphere half the size of the room leaps into existence - sealing me, Orochimaru, the dead body of Kabuto, and the arm and torso of one of the faster guards in.

It was a seal designed by Ruto by my prompting, a way for medics to seal in the most grievously injured during a mission and keep out any unwanted attackers. The integrity was tied to my life: as long as I was still alive, this barrier would not fall. And as long as I was alive, no one could get in or out. I had essentially evened the playing field between me and Orochimaru in one fell swoop.

The snake Sannin snarled at me, furious and - just a little bit - impressed with my sheer gall. "You are courting _death_ , little girl."

Courting? I had _conquered_ it.

"Then why don't you deliver?" I mock him, and with one powerful stomp I pulverize what was left of the jar containing Uchiha Itachi's eyes, destroying Orochimaru's only chance at getting the Sharingan.

That sent him over the edge, and he hissed a deadly sound as he drew Kusanagi, his all cutting sword, and prepared to kill me.


	12. BURNING CORPSES

Underlined - English

 _'Italicised' - Thoughts_

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI**

Being trained by one Sannin does not prepare you to take on another. But it is quite possible that having nothing to lose might just get you there.

As I dance around the Sannin, sending devastating punch and well placed senbon and waves of water and flame I realize that I don't want to die.

But if I _did_ … that would be okay.

Kabuto is dead. The Fourth War would never be fought against the dead brought back by Endo Tensi.

Itachi is dead. Sasuke will never turn against the leaf in the middle of the war.

Kisame is dead. There goes all the major attacks against Bee, meaning that there is just that one more step before the Akatsuki can get the Eight-Tailed-Beast. And I warned Guyki. He can tell Bee and tell Yugito, and then they'd be on guard.

I left my notebooks behind. Shik … Konoha and the Nations will have the extra boost needed to prepare for Akatsuki. To prepare for Zetsu and Kaguya and the Eye of the Moon.

I left all I could to prepare Kakashi for the truth about Obito.

If I died here, what could really be lost? Another medic? A good fighter?

If I died, then after the war was resolved then maybe everything would go back to how it was. Have a happily ever after, just like they deserve.

Too much to hope for, maybe.

But I don't want to die, so I fight with everything I have. I counter every time and heal myself as I go. I destroy and cut and slash and crush, and he matches me every time.

The fight - stretching forever and over in an instant - comes to a climax -

Kusanagi is coming at my neck at a speed I can't avoid and my eyes flare to life, chakra rushing to fill my sockets like water from a shattered damn.

My vision is tinted _red_ -

Everything slows down -

Becomes _clear_ -

And a flare of chakra brings the sternum of Susanoo around me in a firework of purple, just enough to throw him off - catching the final blow and allowing me an instant to reach out and _jab_ a chakra scalpel right into the throat of the first Otokage and he _freezes_.

A labored breath of mine later and his head tumbles to the floor.

Another purely instinctual flare of chakra leaves his body and head crumbling to dust and ash under the brunt of the ever burning black flames of Amaterasu. My head _aches_ -

It takes a moment for me to remember to kick away Kusanagi before it can become nothing more than scrap metal.

I pick it up. Seal it away.

Lob Kabuto's body into the still burning pyre of his master and watch as the two disgusting, sadistic, inhuman semblances of men create an inferno - the air becoming thick with the smell of their burning death.

The Oto nin, gathered around the barrier ready to attack, are silent. I let my chakra rush in a dramatic, instantaneous move to pull from my thus untouched Yin Seal and heal myself back into peak condition in a show of might.

Then I drop the barrier.

* * *

Otogakure burns with a cacophony of deafening explosions and singing flames.

I try to muster up any semblance of regret: I fail.

Otogakure was not like the other villages. The Land of Sound had civilians, yes. But the village did not, not really. Everyone was either an experiment, a prisoner, or mad scientist drunk on power. There were no exceptions.

I had checked, of course. Let the newest prisoners escape and put the most pitiful out of their misery … but it was the very pinnacle of how depraved humanity became once they tried to play God.

So I burned it. Burned all the research, the materials. Reduced the experiments and Orochimaru's backup bodies into cinders and kindling. Wiped Otogakure off the face of the Earth.

Well, the Elemental Nations at least.

But not before I got a list of every single one of Orochimaru's bases across the continent. Couldn't leave this to chance, after all.

I had some hunting to do.

* * *

 **UMINO IRUKA**

When he finally hears the whole story, it's Naruto giving him the rundown behind privacy seals over a couple dozen bowls of ramen four months since Noa … disappeared. Two months since Elder Shiamura Danzo-sama had been declared dead due to acute heart failure.

After his old student finished, Iruka has to finish swallowing his ramen with difficulty - has to excuse himself. He told Naruto that he'd catch up later, that he just had a lot of papers to grade.

Iruka beelines for his apartment, long strides crossing to the corner of his kitchen to dismantle his traps and crouch to ply up a loose floorboard. To remove the packages beneath.

He hadn't known what to do when Noa had … had defected. She wasn't dead … but they had barely talked about the books at all, much less what to do if she _defected from Konoha_.

Such an impossibility had never been a consideration.

Eventually he had sat on them, holding them close through his uncertainty of Noa's guilt.

But now he had the whole story - or as much of it as he could have. And he had to do _something_.

Noa had said to give it to an English speaker, but if it was from Noa …

Then he needed an excuse to corner Shikamaru.

* * *

 **OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI**

"Quite a name you've developed for yourself, you fucking heathen." I hear behind me, not bothering to pretend to flinch - to pretend that I didn't know they were coming. "Jashin would love to have you. Priest, sacrifice, whore - it doesn't really matter to him. Or to me."

I turn to face Hidan, scowl worn openly as I assess the man. My eyes flicker to where I can feel what must be Kakuzu on the plateau behind the Bloody Priest.

' _At least I finished destroying most of the bases_ ,' Is all I can think before I pull out my tanto, ready - though a bit unwilling - to dance.

"Hidan," I semi-greet him. "Jashin would be disgusted by a sacrifice like me."

"But you've destroyed an entire Hidden Village!" He laughs, his white white teeth shining in the tundra sunset. "Not even I have done that!"

"Which makes your bounty _very_ high," Kakuzu's grating voice appears behind me, and I lunge sideways to keep both of the Akatsuki members in my line of sight. "Which means that I'll be taking your _head_ , Fukushuu no Megami."

 _The Vengeful Goddess._

Flattering.

"How high?" I ask, honestly curious. I'd been unable to get my hands on a bingo book in the half a year I'd been a missing nin.

"It's impolite to discuss money," said the century old murderous miser. "But let's just say you've broken some records, shall we?"

…

Well _FUCK_. The last person to do that was the _Yellow Flash_ when he got the order of _Flee on Sight_.

WHAT THE FUCK DID I GET?!

No way I was getting out of here unless either the both of them were dead or _I_ was.

I waste no time, lunging for Hidan and slicing at him with my tanto - activating the barrier the moment that I was far enough from Kakuzu to keep him _out_ and me _in_.

I would never make it out if they used any semblance of teamwork - not that the Akatsuki were very well known for such.

Keep Hidan moving. Don't let him get your blood or draw his sigel on the ground. Destroy him so much Kakuzu can't put him back together again.

Simple.

 _Right?_

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

"Have you seen the updated Bingo Book?"

Shikamaru looked up at his father, looming above where he was sat at their Shogi set. The Nara Clan Head was frowning at a copy in his hand, passing it down to him.

"What are you …" Shikamaru trails off once he catches a glimpse at the order.

" _Flee on Sight?_ The last person to get that order -"

"Was the Yellow Flash after he turned the tides of the Third War," Shikaku finished for him, grimacing. "Look at how this woman got her order."

He continued to read, noting characteristics like hair color (silver, maybe from Kumo?) and approximate age (mid to late twenties) before he saw it.

He had to reread it. Twice.

" _She destroyed Otokagure no Sato_ ," He deadpans, unable to even comprehend such an act. "She killed _Orochimaru_. She _destroyed an entire hidden village._ By _herself_. "

"In fairness, Oto was not the most sound of villages - and certainly not the most powerful," His father points out tiredly, rereading over his shoulder. "But she still managed to kill a Sannin - past his prime or not - and destroy an entire established base full of shinobi in a _night_."

"Do we know where she came from?" Shikamaru asks, fingers letting the Book drop as he steepled his fingers. "Affiliations, names, _anything_?"

"They're calling her the _Vengeful Goddess_ in place of any name," Shikaku tells him, sitting across from his son. "She spoke in a Kumo dialect, and there was tell of a traveling storyteller called 'Okurimono' that matched her description floating around there a couple months ago. Apparently Kumo's Jinchurkis are claiming that she -" the scarred man nodded at the Book "- killed Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame."

He swallowed dryly, "Does Sasuke know?"

His father nodded grimmly. Shikamaru had to push down the urge to growl.

"Just after his name had been cleared, too," He lamented. "He must be devastated."

"It was always a possibility," Shikaku reminded him, but he wasn't contradicting him. Just stating a fact.

"This …"

He was lost for words.

"Yeah," His father sighed, pushing forward a shogi piece. "Yeah."

* * *

 **OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI**

As I burn the last of Hidan, the cloying smell of what was his charred flesh rides on the smoke, steadily choking me out. I pull a Hidden Mole and drop beneath the earth just as I drop the barrier, feeling as a very much enraged and determined ImmortalTM barrels over to see if there was anything salvageable about his partner.

Answer: no. I made sure of that.

Always burn the bodies. Any semi educated 21st century teenager could tell you that's how you kill an immortal. (Or any fucker that you want gone for good. Yay incineration.)

And once upon a time, forever ago, that's exactly what I was. Normal, 21st century, teenager.

Once upon a time.

Let's just hope the motherfucker didn't have some goddamn horcruxes and we're good.

Time for take two. I shift, with my chakra pulled in tight, underneath the feet of the Kakuzu of the Threads and activate my barrier.

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

"Shikamaru?" The Heir's old Academy sensei's voice sounded from the doorway. "Sorry, am I interrupting something?"

Both Nara men looked up to see the scarred man shuffling in the doorway.

Shikaku shook his head, looking at the game that had come to a stalemate twelve turns ago. "No, this game was stagnating. I should check in with Hokage-sama, anyway."

They both watch his father leave and Shikamaru nods at the vacant pillow, smiling fondly as Iruka sat down with the kind of polite awkwardness he remembered from his Academy days.

"What can I do for you, Iruka-sensei?" He asks with a crooked smile, reaching down to push the pieces back into their starting positions. "Did Naruto do something again?"

"Ahh," the chunin rubs the back of his neck wryly. "If only it was that simple."

He watches as the teacher pulls out a sealing scroll, pushing chakra into it to release a pile of well wrapped packages. Shikamaru feels his eyebrows furrow as the pile is pushed towards him.

"Sensei …?"

"These are - were - Noa's," Iruka told him abruptly, cutting him off and stunning him into silence. "She said to give it to you or Team 7 when … if she died. I didn't know what to do after - well. I got the rundown of what happened from Naruto yesterday, and I …"

Shikamaru's hands shake ever so slightly as he reaches out, fingers skimming the top of the stack. He swallows thickly.

"Thank you, Sensei."

Iruka nodded, scratching the scar across the bridge of his nose as he clambered up, the oddness of the situation belaying his usual grace.

Shikamaru picks up the first and tears into the paper, holding his breath.

* * *

 **OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI**

We end up locked in a parody of an embrace, in a way. His hand locked around my neck, one of mine around his last heart and the other with a kunai shoved up under the tender flesh of his chin.

"Where is your base?" I ask, eyes narrowed and unheeding of Kakuzu's grip tightening around my larynx, his fingers so long they dug into the protrusions of my spine. "Where is the Mountain's Graveyard?"

"I was paid never to say," He growls, the muscles in his arm flexing with some held back reflex.

"Money is worth nothing to the dead," I try to reason, pushing sound through as I reinforced my body even further with chakra. I was running seriously low on chakra after running nonstop for months and fighting the whole time. If he tore into me I would survive … but it would draw too much out of me to live for long.

The immortal, sent once to kill the Hokage - the _first_ Hokage - (and managed to get away with his life even if he didn't manage to complete his mission) simply laughed.

"But I was to never die," He chortled with gallows humor.

My Sharingan saw as he prepared to rip out my throat. I destroyed his final heart before he could even twitch.

His huge body collapsing nearly pinned me, but I manage to stumble back. Fall back, really.

Holy shit.

I just killed two immortals.

 _I just killed two immortals._

I light Kakuzu on fire - with normal Katon, not having the chakra to waste on Amaterasu - and ungracefully scooch back, back coming to rest pressed against the barrier.

 _'When did I get this powerful?'_

I was … I was an apprentice to the Sannin. Trained in Taijutsu by Gai. Trained in basically everything by Kakashi. Reflexes because of Anko, aim because of Genma …

And all of it lead to me and two jinchuuriki taking down Itachi and Kisame. Lead to me getting the Sharingan, the ultimate cheat. Defeating the Rogue Sannin …

And ending up here.

' _The Vengeful Goddess_ ,' Kakuzu's name for me echoes around my head.

The adrenaline crash hits me, I feel my eyelids flutter as the weight of the world finally hits me.

As I fall, slumped to the side, the light of a burning dead man sears my eyelids.

The light fades to darkness as exhaustion claims me.


	13. LETTERS FROM THE DEAD

Underlined - English

'Italicised' - Thoughts

In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast

* * *

 **NARA SHIKAMARU**

 _Dear Stag, Ruto, Kakashi-nii, and Sasuke,_

 _I hoped that you would never read this. If you did … then that would mean that everything I have ever done was for nothing, because I died. I couldn't save us all, and that was always what I wanted. Always._

 _When you finish reading this, please keep that in mind. From the first moment I knew you -_ really knew you _\- I realized that I couldn't let history run its course. I couldn't let sleeping dogs lie and allow fate to have its way. No matter how arrogant I was to think I could change anything._

 _From the moment I was aware of myself I knew I was different. There was no Auntie. No tribe. No anything. My name isn't even Noa, as much as I wish I was the girl I told you I was._

 _Reincarnation is real, apparently._

 _English is a language of a different time. The life you all live is one put down in books as stories lost to time. I knew how the story was to end. From the moment I met you, Ruto, in the Red Light District all those years ago, I knew how you all would live, love, and die._

 _And the story had a happy ending, in a roundabout way. And I may have destroyed that by interfering. That's why I wrote this. Because if I die before I can fix everything - ensure that you all get the happily ever after that you deserve - then this will have to be your guide to finish the job, as you would've had I never existed._

 _The job to save the world._

 _I hope you can forgive me. It's a small penance, but everything I remember with as much of it verified as I can and strategies to use and adapt … it's the best I can do._

 _All my love, and may I not disgrace the love you gave me,_

 _Tsubasa Noa, Clan Head and Apprentice to the Godaime Hokage Senju Tsunade-hime_

 _Noa of Konoha, Student to Maito Gai and Hatake Kakashi_

 _Noa of the Nomads - Sister to Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke, Friend to Nara Shikamaru_

 _Hisoka the Demon Child - Disgrace of the Tsubasa Clan_

 _Tsubasa Hisoka - Heir to the Tsubasa Clan_

Shikamaru swallowed roughly at the decoded translation of the first passage of the first book. There were three total … and this was what she had been hiding. Always hiding.

He picked up his pen again, bearing down on the page again.

… _the Uchiha Massacre was orchestrated by …_

… _the leader of the Akatsuki is a man using the name Pein, however he's actually …_

… _Hashirama and Madara were the best of friends (and I'd wager lovers, too) …_

… _Kakashi, I'm sorry. Uchiha Obito never died. Zetsu saved him at the last moment…_

… _Orochimaru is actually less of a problem than_ Kabuto _is in the upcoming war …_

… _Kurama is actually rather helpful, especially as he teaches Ruto the Bijuu Ball …_

… _Sorry not sorry Shika. Temari is amazing, and I'm dead now so maybe you can …_

… _Hidan kills Asuma. Don't worry, I have a plan for that. The seal he makes ..._

… _Zetsu can use Mokuton, but the real problem is the mimicry ability of the clones …_

… _not the only reincarnations after all, Sasuke, Ruto. You two both have the spirits of …_

… _Obito is doing this all for Rin, and in a way for Kakashi …_

… _Be wary. Danzo can and will ..._

… _cycle of hatred …_

… _Fourth Shinobi War …_

… _United Shinobi Forces …_

… _Sakura …_

… _Shikaku dies …_

… _Eye of the Moon Plan …_

… _Eternal Genjutsu …_

… _I'm sorry …_

The Nara heir placed down his pen. Closed the back cover of the third and final book. Looked at his notes.

"Holy actual fuck _._ "

* * *

 **THE MAN WITH NO NAME**

The barrier was effective. It would've kept anyone else out.

Unluckily for the woman before him, he was Uchiha Madara and Tobi of the Akatsuki and (once, long ago) Uchiha Obito - so he wasn't just anyone else.

Passing through the pocket dimension to enter was simple. Child's play, even, for a shinobi of his caliber.

Hidan and Kakuzu, the supposed immortals, were both dead. Finally, the world was free of their stench. Rin would've hated them, with their callous disregard for what was _right_. What was _fair_.

And this was all for Rin, after all.

The girl on the ground kind of reminded him (whoever he himself was, these days) of Rin. Small, compact, and dangerous - a medic, too. Who Rin would've grown up to become or teach if Bakakashi hadn't -

She was curled in on herself, back pressed against the barrier linked to her heartbeat as her breathing slowly grew more and more shallow.

He reached down silently, chakra mased, and placed a hand on her chest. Watched her breathe.

And he plunged his hand through her ribcage, phasing her heart out of her chest.

He waits. The barrier flickers and falls. He pulls her heart back into the right dimension.

The sudden shift changes something, though, and she is coughing, fighting back into awareness.

Can't have that.

The Uchiha leans town and peels back an eyelid, an unfocused pupil and bloodshot red eye greeting him. His Sharingan comes to life and he coaxes her back down, layering sheets of relaxation, peace, and satisfaction under piles of exhaustion and sleep. He was an Uchiha, and genjutsu was in his blood; after all, he was trained by the best.

The best way to hold a prisoner is to make sure they never realize they are even being held. Enough layers and she won't wake up to know she isn't free. Enough incentives to stay in her own head and she won't even bother to escape.

He scoops her up, cradling her small but muscled form. Her silver hair (so much like an arrogant boy he once knew) falls over his arms and shoulders, and if he ever smiled these days he might've at the sight she made as she sighed in her fabricated reality - at peace, even if it wasn't real.

' _Peace is an illusion anyway. This was the plan, after all.'_

And with that final though he slipped into the night.

* * *

 **HATAKE KAKASHI**

"Kakashi!"

I turn from talking to Genma to see Shikamaru _running_ towards me. That alone is enough to set off _all_ kinds of alarms, because Nara. Don't. _Run_.

 _But the look on his face._

"I need you, _now_ ," The young jounin hisses, eyes flickering warily around. " _Now,_ now _._ "

I only have time to nod a quick goodbye to a startled Genma before Shikamaru's hand is around my bicep, sushining us away at high speed until we end up in Noa's old apartment, boarded up and sealed to high hell.

"Read this," He demands, shoving a pile of papers snapped together with a rubber band at me. "Sharingan. _Now_."

I do.

I have to stop halfway through ... Sensei, _Obito -_

I force myself to finish. It takes less than five minutes burning chakra, and I _burn it all right_. Shikamaru paces nervously the whole time.

I think I'm going into shock.

" _Find Sasuke and Naruto,_ " I order him, already scrambling for some idea of how the hell I was going to explain this all to the Hokage.

* * *

' **TOBI'**

"Leader-samaaaaaa~~!" 'Tobi' laughed, appearing in the middle of the Mountain's Graveyard with the silver haired woman still in his arms. "Look who I found! Look who I _found_!"

Pein and Konan look up from their pile of paperwork, tensing at his arrival. "Look! She was next to Hidan and Kakuzu's dead bodies! Can we keep her? Can we _keep her_?!"

Immediately Konan is up, slipping over to look at the woman in question, a scowl on her face. Hidan and Kakuzu weren't their - Pein and Konan's - friends, but they were mercenaries under their command. Their numbers were dropping rapidly, and it wasn't looking good and she knew it.

" _This_ is the Fukushuu no Megami?" Pein asked in his deep, deep voice. "She's the one whose been killing off our men?"

"But Leader-sama, she only killed Kisame 'n Itachi 'n Orochimaru 'n Hidan 'n Kakuzu!" Tobi corrected him with his bubbly persona. "Sasori 'n Deidara are dead cuz of the _Kyuuubi_ ~!"

"Yes, we _know_ , Tobi," Konan attempts to shut him down. "But that's four of our own and one of our former members dead because of _her_. How did you even capture her?"

"Oh, Tobi saw her asleep inside a bubble," He informed her joyfully. "There was Hidan's Scythe and Kakuzu's coat and lots of fire, so I went in the bubble to investigate. And she was all asleep, so I put a genjutsu on her! Can we keep her? _Please?_ "

The two of them share hesitant looks (well, Konan was hesitant. Pein had a poker face to rival Madara's). "Well," Konan finally relents. "Better for her to be locked up here than killing us out there."

"Keep her unconscious," Pein finally orders, eyes on the woman's still form. "Do whatever you need to to make sure she doesn't get out."

"Hai, Leader-sama!" He shrugged a shoulder in place of a salute, skipping off into the deeper halls of the base.

* * *

 **SENJU TSUNADE**

Shikaku and I are in the middle of a meeting about this Fukushuu no Megami when Team 7 and the Nara brat burst in like Orochimaru's snakes are on their tail.

When they finished their garbled half-explanation and papers of evidence are passed around, and I feel like punching everyone in the room and drinking until my blood turns into sake.

' _Sensei, why couldn't you have shoved this onto Jiraiya?_ '

"What haven't we addressed?" I finally grit out, giving up and breaking into my emergency-emergency stash. I should've known better than to trust my winning triple rollover lottery ticket. "Half this shit we've already dealt with."

"Akatsuki and - and Obtio," Kakashi starts, form weary. "Kaguya and Zetsu."

"Pein and Konan," Sasuke adds, holding himself stiffly. "The Fourth War."

"Oh, so just the biggest shit shows on the table then," I laugh out bitterly. "How much of Akatsuki is still even _alive_?"

"Pein and Nagato and Obito," Naruto supplies, eyebrows furrowed.

"And then Hidan and Kakuzu, if this Fukushuu hasn't killed them too, yet." Shikaku adds, clearly feeling his years. "She seems to have a fondness for that - plus pyrotechnics, barrier seals, and destructive taijutsu."

The room freezes.

" _You're fucking kidding me,"_ Kakashi hisses, visable eye flared wide. "She never does anything by half does she?"

"Oh, can't save the world through the village?" Sasuke asks rhetorically, mimicking Noa's higher voice and accent. "Guess I'll just have to become the most feared and dangerous bounty in the Bingo Book since the _Yellow Flash_ \- you know, Naruto's dad? The _Yondaime Hokage_?"

"Kabuto isn't _dead_ yet?" Naruto continued on in the same vein. "Oh, I'll just burn Oto to the ground and face a Sannin while I'm at it. I'm sure that killing the most notorious missing nin in the Nations won't be a big deal, at all! Oh, what could happen?"

"I need an apprentice that won't give me heart attacks," I tell Shikaku dryly, gesturing vaguely at the door. "Put in an order. Must be easy, grab Haruno - apparently she was to be the Neo-me in an alternate timeline, so she should be up to par."

" _This entire situation is insane_ ," Sasuke hisses, composure shattered as he scans the room, the ANBU in him automatically looking for a way out. "What the hell do we even _do now?_ "

"Oh, sorry wasn't it obvious?" Naruto cuts him off, grinning at him. "Noa's hunting down Akatsuki. If we finish the job for her, then she'll have to come back."

I collapsed in my chair, letting my head drop to my desk as an impromptu counsel to prevent a war _we didn't even know was coming_ from killing us all with the moon.

 _God I needed a drink. A proper one._


	14. LAYERS UPON LAYERS

Underlined - English

' _Italicised' - Thoughts_

 **In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast**

* * *

 **KONAN**

"What are we going to _do_ with her, Nagato?" I ask him, eyes following Tobi's exit. "What are we going to do in general? Our numbers are down, we only have four of the nine Bijuu, and over half our organization is dead thanks to _that woman_. And now she's genjutsu'd to all hell and being shoved in our basement."

"For now, we need to contain her," Nagato's voice comes through Yahiko's body. "We can recruit. The Jinchuuriki won't be expecting new members, so we can catch them unawares. _We can still win this_ , Konan."  
"I hope so," I grimace, tongue worrying my lip piercing. "I really hope so."

"I'm not going to die," He cuts to the heart of the matter, picking up on my anxiety. "We're not rushing into this. Just speeding up our time table."

I nod.

"But right now we need funds," Pein follows up, picking up a mission scroll. "And our treasurer is dead. I think an A-Rank assasination request should tide us over."

* * *

 **UZUMAKI NARUTO**

"We've managed to narrow down the possible locations of the Mountain's Graveyard," Jiraiya told the room as he laid down a map of lightning country. "Based off what Noa … _remembered_ and the activities in Kumo and Ame, it's in one of two locations. I propose that we set up Naruto clones galore and wait for movement."

"Is that wise?" Asked Tenzo (Yamato?), the only person other than Jiraiya to be read in on the situation - one of the few described favorably and _only_ favorably by Noa in her … writings. "It might tip our hand too soon."

"What we need isn't to be careful, it's to draw them out," Naruto argued, cocking his head. "If my clones draw them out and towards a singular spot of contact between the two, we can be ready and choose our point of contact. I say we do it."

"And what of Noa?" Tsunade asked, leaning back against her desk, fingers curled around the lip of the edge. "If she is the Fukushuu no Megami then she'll be on her way to the base now to give Nagato and Obtio a firm kick to their asses. She won't be read in on what we do and may do something brash - like activate one of those barriers she seems to be so fond of these days."

"And if it's not her," Jiraiya adds, clearly trying to push past the mention of Nagato. "Then that's another very dangerous player on the board that we don't know the intentions or allegiance of."

"It's her," Shikamaru insists. "And if it's not then she's going to be gunning for Akatsuki anyway, so we might as well try to ally ourselves to her."

"Let's just hope it is Noa," Shikaku agrees. "And deal with the fallout of it not being her once we reach it."

* * *

 **UCHIHA SASUKE**

Sasuske saw Naruto tense before the others did, his eyes closed and tinted orange with Sage Mode as he sits in meditation.

"Konan and Yahiko-Pein are coming this way - they sensed us," He announced, eyes flicking open with pupils widened like a toad's. "They're angry. Get ready."

We all fall into formation. The Dobe and Kakashi stand ready to face them head on as Shikamaru and I take to the trees, ready to drop on them from above. Cat - _Tenzo_ \- merges directly into the foliage, ready to provide support with his Mokuton. Shikamaru readies the barrier seals, taking a leaf out of Noa's - _the Fukushuu no Megami's_ \- book and getting ready to seal them all in. Taking down Pein's bodies was a lesson in divide and conquer.

(It was thanks to Noa we knew that.)

Then Konan and Yahiko-Pein crash into the clearing and it all goes to shit.

* * *

 **NOA**

A rush of chakra wakes her, and she's tied down.

By not-stone. In -

 _In Obito's fucking pocket universe_.

 _FUCK_.

Don't hyperventilate. _Don't_.

' _It's fine just Uchiha Obito without his mask on its good.'_

"Please tell me you didn't abduct me just to throw me in here, never to return," The words fall out of her mouth before she can stop them. She locks eyes (ish, she's not suicidal) with Obito/Tobi/Madara, before swallowing. She might be outclassed here. Just a bit. "Because that just sounds like a waste of chakra."

"You intrigue me," Obito not-answers. "And I want you somewhere controlled. So you're here.

"Well shit," Noa coughs, absently checking her chakra levels (by the way, _not enough_ ). "Well, thanks for not killing me yet? Feel free not to change your mind."

"You used Amaterasu to kill Hiden," Obito stated, and she honestly couldn't tell if it was a question or not.

A pause. Apparently it was.

"I'm not an Uchiha, if that's what you're sorta asking?" Noa speaks up after a moment, too drained to even put up a proper front. "I mean, I don't really know what you want. You have your freaky magic eyes, leave mine alone."

' _Keep him talking. Keep him distracted. The more he focuses on you, the less time he's plotting the end of the world.'_

"You remind me of myself, when I was young," Obito not-laughs. "So much potential, just not sharpened."

Okay, _rude_.

"I think you'll find that I am plenty powerful and sharp on my own, buddy," Noa huffs, indignant on her teachers behalves. "My sensei were _great_ and I managed to off _plenty_ of your puppets, so _hop off_ , dickwad."

"You know our goals," Obito muses - disturbingly, his face pulling at his scars. "Yet you still oppose us."

"I'm a fucking American, jackass," Noa growls. "I was raised from day-fucking- _one_ to believe that freedom is not just _feeling_ free. It's having the right to suffer and fight and love and _die_ , all by your own device. _Freedom_ and _peace_ is not 'possible' in an illusion, some genjutsu that will kill you even as you like it. You're just preaching for a more advanced version of narcotic addiction, you idjit."

"You are stubborn," Obito completely ignores my outburst. "But I think that you'll be of use."

' _Oh_ hell _no-_ '

He grabs my chin, and I can't shut my eyes fast enough before I'm falling.

* * *

 **UZUMAKI NARUTO**

"That went a lot smoother than I expected," Naruto confessed as he sealed the heads of Konan and Yahiko-Pein into scrolls, pulling out a black rod with a sickening sound before Sasuke sets them both bodies on fire.

"That's because it was only one body and Jiraiya wasn't here - or _dead_ ," Kakashi rebuffs him. " _And_ we aren't being invaded. Let's go, we can track them from where they came and find their base."

"That's going to be a problem," Shikamaru cut in, eyes locked on the space beyond the barrier bubble. "We've got company."

We all turn, looking into the Rinnegan eyes of the other five bodies of Pein.

All looking _beyond furious._

"Naruto," Shikamaru continues, eyes flickering to the rod in my hand. "I'm going to drop the barrier. You need to go straight to the real one and kill him, no mercy. We don't have _time_."

He nodded. In the history that Noa knew he may have been lenient, but that was a 16 year old wide-eyed hopeful Naruto - not one who had to prepare for _war_. He would not allow any of his family to die today.

"Drop it," He ordered, jamming the rod into his hand.

The moment the Nara does, he's gone.

* * *

 **NOA**

I'm in a room that is stone archways and vines mixed with trees and stained glass. A towering clock hangs on the wall behind me, it's hands moving silently and fluidly over the pearled face. The numbers are roman, each stroke matte black. According to the clock, it's midnight.

There are books everywhere, along with kunai and bits of yarn and spiral notebooks. A couch by a back wall is piled with warm blankets and pillows, the coffee table in front of it laden with graphic novels and sketchbooks.

And Obito is glancing around with palpable intrigue.

I'm inside my own head.

Recognize it. Stole one of Ino's scrolls on it. This is a mindscape.

And _Obito is inside my mindscape_.

 _FUCK._

"Get out," I order, furious. "This is my head. You have no right to be here."

"I don't need a 'right'," Obito scoffs, finally turning to face me. "You -"

He cuts off, and instantly he is _way closer_ than necessary.

"What are you?" He demands, slicing off a lock of brown hair with his kunai before I could stop him, snatching it from the air as it fell. "I did not intend to get sucked in. And you had silver hair."

"Get out," I order again, not dignifying that with a response. "And when I kill you it will be a swift death."

"Your eyes are neither red nor Sharingan," He continues, examining me like a prized stallion - he better not try to pry open my mouth to get a look at my teeth or something. "You were disguised. Why is that?"

"I _said_ -" I start again, but his hand is around my throat, and I curse the lack of chakra I have to stop him.

"Now, I'll ask again," Obito repeats with deadly calm, Sharingan flaring back full force. " _What are you?_ "

"Fuck. You." I choke out, mind racing. "And I said: GET. _OUT!"_

Against rational, I activate my Sharingan - Itachi's Sharingan - and as the sky turns red and the world turns black, chains wrap around his arms and his neck, snaking up around his legs. He's imobile, and the moment surprise flits across his scarred features I'm already ramming my sai into his neck.

He chokes as he feels the pain, even as he lives.

"Now then," I narrow my Mangekyo at him. "Let's _talk_."

* * *

 **UZUMAKI NARUTO**

"You've come to kill me, then?" Nagato asked, voice beyond weak and body frail. His Rinnegan was killing him, just as Noa said. "What do you gain from stopping world peace?"

"You are only perpetuation the circle of violence. The wheel of hate," Naruto told him grimmly, looking him right in his purple gaze. "And you are being manipulated even as you manipulate others."

"You know nothing," The frail Uzumaki spat at his cousin.

"You are dying," Naruto shot back at him, the blonde's lip quirking grimmly. "And those eyes aren't your own."

He took a rasengan and shoved it into Pein's chest.

The presumed leader of the Akatsuki coughs once, blood coloring his lips, and Naruto removed his hand as his heart faltered to a stop.

Steeling himself, he reaches up to Nagato's face and pull out first one, then another eye from his socket. They get crushed between his palms, and Naruto scrapes the goo off his hands and onto the ground. Without fanfare, he set the pile of mush on fire.

The inferno spreads as it consumes the entirety of the paper tree, integrity and fire resistance falling apart with Konan's death.

A part of him regrets not being able to save his cousin, but then that would've been another world. And that other world is one where he was _alone._

Just as he the blaze flickers out, the flames brilliant but brief, a crow _caws_ and I follow the sound, eyes landing on one of Sasuke's summons.

"Hurry, _hurry_!" The young bird cries. "Kaka-kun is angry! Kaka-kun is _very_ angry! Hurry hurry!"

* * *

 **HATAKE KAKASHI**

He can smell her.

A growl rips through him before he can stop it, anger rumbling through his chest.

The bodies of Pein had all collapsed like they were puppets with their chakra strings cut, and the Konoha nin team barely had time to be relieved before Tenzo was sealing away the bodies and Kakashi dropped the barrier to track where they came from.

They follow the trail and then - with the oppressive stench of Pein's chakra gone - he can _smell her_.

The feeling of tree limbs springing from the ground and wrapping around him freezes the Last Hatake in place, the only thing that stops him from flying off the handle.

" _Kakashi_ ," Sasuke is calling to him, and he distantly realizes that it wasn't the first time. " _What is it?"_

"I can smell her, on the trail," He chokes out, nose turned up in the air - desperate for a better scent. "It was on Konan. Faint. But -"

"Noa's at the _Akatsuki base_?" Shikamaru demanded, eyes alight on the trail as if he would catch some details to lead them right to her. "Blood?"

"None," Kakashi tells him. "And she wouldn't go without a fight."

"The Uchiha were known for their Genjutsu, and even Noa is weak to the Sharingan," Tenzo reminded his senpai, carefully releasing the former taicho from his bonds. "Let's plan as we go - we don't know what Zetsu and Tobi will have planned for a prisoner. They've never taken one before."

All he can do is growl in assent before they've launched themselves forward.

* * *

 **NOA**

Torture wasn't something I enjoyed.

"Where is Pein?"

That, at least, was one part of who I used to be that survived the propaganda and the conditioning and the desentization of The Elemental Nations, of Konoha. I could tell every step of the way when I was being fed lines of bullshit. When I was being slowly introduced to treating the horrendous as _okay_ , as part of my job.

"How many Jinchuruki have you captured?"

I knew every step of the way and allowed it to happen, because I might've once had the luxury of free speech and the ability to speak out, but Konoha was a military nation. A tyrannical, fascist state. Adapt or die.

"What are the Akatsuki plans?"

But I never allowed myself to enjoy killing, enjoy _hurting_. And _never_ to enjoy torture.

"Who is your next target?"

That resolve was getting pushed, with Obito.

"Where is Zetsu?"

And it was because it was so hard to _see_ him as Obito. As the character, the story, of a bright boy who was crushed - literally and figuratively. Excuse the pun.

"What is your real name?"

Obito was a good man, under the madness and the manipulation, and the betrayal -

"Why did you kill the Yondaime Hokage?"

But it was _really hard_ to see it.

"How many of you are there?"  
In here - in the Mangekyo inside my mindscape inside his _pocket dimension_ … he was Madara. Or Tobi pretending to be Madara.

"What -"  
"You're wasted," He spits along with a glob of blood, cutting me off - responding at all for the first time despite the numerous wounds I inflicted on him. "You're strong. You can activate and deactivate your Sharingan - you're an Uchiha, like me."

' _No, I'm a_ medic _. Idiot.'_

Here, he was a hate spewing madman who killed my adopted brother's parents, my older brother's teachers, and my best friend's family. And I wanted to make him _hurt_ for that.

I had to remind myself that there was some good in him … somewhere.

I ram my sai back into his gut.

"Tell me," I _purr_ , emulating Anko. "Where the Mountain's Graveyard is."

He laughed.

"You were already there," He hacked through the tear in his trachea. "But you'll never make it out of here alive - much less with your mind intact."

He bared his teeth, but I was reeling.

 _I was in the Mountain's Graveyard_.

"Oh, you _idiot._ "


End file.
